Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Morgan at the premiere of Ant-Man in 2015
Born	(1966-04-22) April 22, 1966 Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1991–present
Spouse(s)	Anya Longwell (1992–2003)[1] Hilarie Burton (2009-present)
Partner(s)	Mary-Louise Parker (2006–08)
Children	1

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (born April 22, 1966) is an American actor. He is best known for playing the villainous Negan on The Walking Dead, John Winchester on Supernatural, Denny Duquette in the medical drama Grey's Anatomy for parts of three seasons (2006–2009), The Comedian in the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, and Ike Evans in Magic City.

Early life

Morgan was born in Seattle, Washington to Sandy Thomas and Richard Dean Morgan.^[2] He attended Ben Franklin Elementary School, Rose Hill Junior High, and Lake Washington High School in Kirkland, Washington, where he played football and captained the basketball team. He went on to play basketball at Skagit Valley College before being sidelined by injury.

Career

Starting with Uncaged (1991), Morgan has appeared in over 25 feature films. However, the bulk of his work has been in television. He was the star of the 1996–1997 television series The Burning Zone; his character, Dr. Edward Marcase, appeared in 10 out of 19 episodes that season. In 2005 and 2006, Morgan simultaneously appeared in three television series: in the CW series Supernatural as John Winchester, in a recurring role on ABC's Grey's Anatomy as heart transplant patient Denny Duquette, and as Judah Botwin in two episodes of the Showtime series Weeds. He has also guest-starred in a number of television series, including ER, JAG, Walker, Texas Ranger, Angel, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Sliders, The O.C., and Monk.

In 2007, Morgan was cast in a proposed project by Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. The series, tentatively titled "Correspondents", was to have started production in summer 2007. ABC instead picked up a spin-off of Grey's Anatomy, called Private Practice, that was also created by Rhimes. As a result, "Correspondents" was shelved.

Another 2007 film starring Morgan is The Accidental Husband, which finished filming in New York City in March 2007 and was not released on DVD until 2009.

In 2008, Morgan starred in the thriller The Resident and the drama film Days of Wrath.

In 2009, Morgan portrayed The Comedian, a cigar-chomping antihero, in Watchmen, based on Alan Moore's graphic novel.^[3] The same year, Morgan appeared in Taking Woodstock, and played Clay in a comic book movie adaptation of The Losers.

In 2011, Morgan appeared in the Texas crime thriller Texas Killing Fields as a homicide detective.^[4]

In 2012, Morgan starred in the television drama series Magic City, which centered on mob life in 1950s Miami. The series premiered on April 6 and was cancelled after two seasons.^[5] The same year, Morgan appeared in the horror thriller The Possession, and the war film Red Dawn.

In January 2014, the media announced that Morgan had been cast in the lead role in Jonás Cuarón's Desierto.^[6] In November, 2014, it was announced that Morgan had been cast as Joe DiMaggio opposite Kelli Garner as Marilyn Monroe in The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, a Lifetime four-hour miniseries based on J. Randy Taraborrelli's book which was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, December 2014-February 2015.^[7]

In 2015, Morgan portrayed Deaf Smith in Texas Rising, a five-part mini-series which aired on the History Channel. Also in 2015, he became a regular cast member for season 2 of the CBS sci-fi drama Extant.

Morgan at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International, promoting The Walking Dead.

He appeared in a brief role in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), as Bruce Wayne's father, Thomas Wayne. He also played the character of a freelance investigator Jason Crouse in the popular T.V show The Good Wife. It was confirmed in November 2015 that Morgan would be portraying the character Negan on the AMC TV series The Walking Dead. He made his first appearance as Negan in the sixth-season finale and serves as the primary antagonist of the seventh season.^[8]

Personal life

On May 30, 1992, Morgan was married to actress Anya Longwell in Las Vegas.^[1] In 2007, he was briefly engaged to his former Weeds costar Mary-Louise Parker;^[9] their engagement ended in April 2008.^[10]

In 2009, Morgan began a relationship with actress Hilarie Burton. The couple's son was born in March 2010.^[11][12] In a July, 2015 interview with The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Morgan said that despite media reports to the contrary, he and Burton were not yet married but that they intended to wed when he could get enough time off from work. ^[13]

Morgan and Burton make their home in the town of Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, New York on a working farm with cows, chickens and alpacas.^[14] Since 2014, they have been co-owners (along with Morgan's friend, actor Paul Rudd) of Samuel's Sweet Shop, a Rhinebeck candy store they saved from being closed down after the previous owner, a friend of theirs, died suddenly.^[15]

In a June 2015 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Morgan responded to Kimmel asking how many children he had by saying "I have one", referring to his son with Hilarie Burton.^[16]

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

• Jeffrey Dean Morgan at the Internet Movie Database
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan at the TCM Movie Database
  
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan at AllMovie
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan Info