William Petersen

William Louis Petersen (born February 21, 1953) is an American actor and producer best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom in the CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He also starred in films, such as To Live and Die in L.A. and Manhunter.

Early life

Petersen was born in Evanston, Illinois, the youngest of six children of Helen June (née Hoene; 1909–2006) and Arthur Edward Petersen, Sr. (1907–2004), who worked in the furniture business.^[1][2] He is of Danish and German descent.^[3] He has two brothers, Arthur, Jr. and Robert, plus three sisters, Anne, Mary Kay, and Elizabeth.^[4] He graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, in 1972. He was accepted to Idaho State University on a football scholarship. While at Idaho State, Petersen took an acting course, which changed the direction of his life. He left school along with his wife, Joanne, in 1974 and followed a drama professor to the Basque country, where he studied as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen was interested in Basque culture and he studied the Basque language, Euskera, and gave his daughter the Basque name Maite Nerea (meaning My Beloved); she was born in Arrasate/Mondragón 1975.^[5] Petersen returned to Idaho with the intention of being an actor. Not wanting to work a nonacting job in Idaho, he returned to the Chicago area, living with relatives. He became active in the theater and earned his Actors' Equity card. He performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, of which he has been an ensemble member since 2008, and was a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble, which also included other prominent Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine.

Career

In 1985, Petersen received his first break when he starred as a Secret Service agent gone rogue to avenge his mentor in William Friedkin's 1985 action film To Live and Die in L.A. The following year, Petersen played FBI agent Will Graham in the first Hannibal Lecter film, Manhunter. Because his role was so emotionally exhausting, he did everything he could to rid himself of Graham after finishing principal photography. He shaved off his beard, cut his hair and bleached it blond. He also claims to have done this because, while rehearsing for a play in Chicago, his dialogue was always coming out like Graham's; he dyed his hair so he could look in the mirror and see a different person.^[6]

He declined a part in Oliver Stone's Platoon, as it would have kept him in the Philippines, away from his family. Instead, he worked on the 1987 HBO made-for-TV movie Long Gone as a minor league baseball player and manager. Petersen was offered the role of Henry Hill in the movie Goodfellas, but turned it down. An exposé about the film in the May 2015 issue of Playboy claims that Petersen turned down the audition altogether. ^[7]In a 1990 ABC three-part miniseries, The Kennedys of Massachusetts, Petersen played U.S. President John F. Kennedy's father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. The film won an Emmy and a Golden Globe from eight and two nominations, respectively. Also in 1990, Petersen portrayed the infamous Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett in Young Guns II. In 1993, Petersen appeared in another miniseries, Return to Lonesome Dove, and in 1996's Fear. Petersen played the role of Governor Jack Hathaway, an unscrupulous candidate for vice president following the death of the incumbent, in The Contender.

He appeared uncredited in the noir thriller Mulholland Falls as a character who finds himself on the violent receiving end of a Los Angeles police squad's tactics. He starred in Kiss the Sky and also appeared as part of an all-star cast in a remake of the film 12 Angry Men (as Juror #12, aka "the Snob"). From 2000 to 2010, he played Dr. Gil Grissom in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Petersen took a break from CSI to appear in a five-week run of the Trinity Repertory Company production of Dublin Carol in Providence, Rhode Island. On May 30, 2007, he was at Wrigley Field to join WGN radio sportscasters covering a Chicago Cubs–Florida Marlins game, and he mentioned he had seen CSI: The Experience at the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) on the South Side of Chicago. He expressed how he and his castmates were "blessed" to have such a successful series when he had seen shows starring friends cancelled after only a few episodes.

Petersen renewed his contract with CBS to appear on CSI for the 2008-09 season, reportedly for $600,000 per episode.^[8] On July 15, 2008, the Associated Press reported that Petersen was leaving the show as a regular following Season 9's tenth episode in order to pursue more stage acting opportunities, but that he might return for guest spots.^[9] He remained an executive producer of the show.^[9] He reprised his role of Gil Grissom in the eleventh season episode "The Two Mrs. Grissoms" (aired February 3, 2011).

On February 3, 2009, Petersen was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Most of the cast and crew of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation attended the ceremony. His star is located at 6667 Hollywood Blvd., directly in front of the legendary Musso & Frank Grill.

Personal life

Petersen married longtime girlfriend Gina Cirone in July 2003. He has a daughter, Maite (born c. 1975), from his previous marriage to Joanne Brady. Through Maite, he has two grandsons, Mazrik William (born October 2003) and Indigo August (born August 2009). He is an avid Chicago Cubs fan. In 2004, he described to Playboy Magazine a near-death experience he had in the 1980s that gave him "assurance" that there is an afterlife.^[10]

On July 5, 2011, Petersen and Cirone (via surrogate) welcomed twins, a son and daughter.^[11]

Filmography

Film

Television

Production credits

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Keep the Change
• Hard Promises

Live theatre

Remains Theatre

• Indulgences in a Louisville Harem (1980)
• Sixty Six Scenes of Halloween (1981)
• The Tooth of Crime (1984) .... Hoss (nominated by Joseph Jefferson Awards)
• Balm in Gilead (1981–82) .... Joe Conroy
• Moby Dick (1984) .... Ahab
• A Class "C" Trial in Yokahama
• Big Time (1987) .... Paul
• American Buffalo (1991) .... Teach
• Once in Doubt (1992) .... Painter
• The Chicago Conspiracy Trial (1992)
• Waiting for Godot
• The Time of Your Life .... Joe
• Farmyard
• Traps
• Speed the Plow (1987) .... Bobby Gould

Steppenwolf Theatre Company

• Balm in Gilead (1981–82) .... Joe Conroy
• Fool for Love (1984) .... Eddie
• A Dublin Carol (2008) .... John Plunkett
• Endgame (2011) .... Hamm
• Slowgirl (2013)

Goodman Theatre

• Gardenia (1982) .... ???
• The Time of Your Life .... Joe
• Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) .... James Lingk
• The Night of the Iguana (1994) .... Reverend Shannon

Victory Gardens Theatre

• Dillinger (1978) .... John Dillinger
• Towards the Morning (1978)
• Flyovers (1998) .... Ted
• Blackbird (2009) .... Ray (won the Jeff Awards)
• Heat (1978)

Wisdom Bridge Theatre

• Canticle of the Sun (1981) .... ???
• Belly of the Beast (1983) .... Jack Henry Abbott (Prize Joseph Jefferson Awards from Best Actor)
• Speed the Plow (1987) .... Bobby Gould

Other stage works

• Darkness at Noon (1976), Chicago area production
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1984) .... Stanley Kowalski, Stratford Festival of Canada, Stratford, Ontario, Canada, 1984
• Days and Nights Within (1986) .... Interrogator, Organic Theatre
• Puntila and His Hired Mano (1986) .... Matti, Organic Theatre
• Speed the Plow .... Bobby Gould, Kennedy Center in D.C.
• The Night of the Iguana (1996) .... Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, Roundabout Theatre Company, Criterion Center Stage Right Theatre, New York City
• A Dublin Carol .... John Plunkett, Trinity Reportory Company (Providence)
• Twelfth Night .... ???, Illinois Shakespeare Festival
• As You Like It .... ???, Illinois Shakespeare Festival
• The Belly of the Beast (1983) .... Jack Henry Abbott (Ivanhoe Theatre, Chicago, IL, 1985 and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, 1985)
• A Class C Trial in Yokohama, Chicago Theatre Project
• The Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison, Glasgow, Scotland and London, England, including the American Festival, London, 1985
• Slowgirl (2014) (Los Angeles Playhouse)

• Appeared in productions at Boise State University and Lewis and Clark College.

Stage director

• Farmyard, Remains Theatre, Chicago, IL, c. 1980
• Traps, Remains Theatre, 1983

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Petersen.

• William Petersen at the Internet Movie Database
• Screen grabs, press stills and information about Petersen's famous role in Michael Mann's "Manhunter" (1986)
• Petersen not sad about 'CSI' exit Digital Spy, January 9, 2009
• Billy in theatre