Background

Bruce William Boxleitner was born on May 12, 1950, in Elgin, Illinois, United States.

Education

Boxleitner attended Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and the Goodman Theater School of Drama of the Art Institute of Chicago (nowadays The Theatre School at DePaul University).

Career

Bruce Boxleitner's first television appearance was a five-line part in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He also had numerous guest roles on series including Hawaii 5-0, Beretta, Police Woman and Gunsmoke. Since then, he has worked steadily in television, frequently in Westerns. His big break occurred when he was cast opposite James Arness in the pilot for the epic TV series How the West Was Won. He went on to star in the CBS series Bring ‘em Back Alive, miniseries East of Eden and TV movie The Last Convertible. However, it was his four-year run on CBS-TV’s popular series Scarecrow and Mrs. King, co-starring Kate Jackson, which endeared him to fans of all ages and made him a household name.

In 1994, Boxleitner joined the cast of the hit TV series Babylon 5 as John Sheridan, President of the Interstellar Alliance, a war hero-turned-diplomat at the helm of Earth Alliance Space Station in the year 2259. The show aired for five seasons.

Boxleitner spent three seasons co-starring with Andie MacDowell on Hallmark Channel’s first-ever primetime series, Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove. In addition, Boxleitner co-starred with Lindsay Wagner in Hallmark Channel’s The Thanksgiving House special which premiered on November 2, 2013, and co-starred in the Christmas TV movie Silver Bells that aired on December 1, 2013, on the UP Network.

In 1982 Boxleitner was cast in the title role in Disney’s cult film Tron, which garnered him sci-fi fans nationally and internationally. In 2010 he starred with Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy, the popular motion picture sequel to Disney’s cult film Tron. The cast also included Garret Hedlund and Olivia Wilde. Later, the multi-talented actor reprised his role in Tron: Uprising on Disney’s XD TV Network, his first animated TV series. The cast included Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Lance Henriksen and Paul Reubens. The original Tron celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2012.

Boxleitner’s other film credits include Gods and Generals with Robert Duvall, Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang and Mira Sorvino, The Babe with John Goodman and Kelly McGillis, Kuffs with Christian Slater and The Baltimore Bullet with James Coburn.

Among his numerous TV credits are The Secret with Kirk Douglas, Perfect Family with Jennifer O’Neal and Joanna Cassidy, Double Jeopardy with Rachel Ward, Sally Kirkland and Sela Ward, Passion Flower with Barbara Hershey and Nicol Williamson and Hallmark Channel original movies including Love’s Resounding Courage and Falling In Love with the Girl Next Door. The veteran actor has appeared in numerous recurring roles in TV series such as GCB, Heroes, NCIS and guest-starred on Chuck.

In 1999, Boxleitner authored Frontier Earth and in 2001, its sequel Frontier Earth: Searcher published by The Berkley Publishing Group. Along with Trevor Crafts, Boxleitner was an executive producer of Bruce Boxleitner’s Lantern City, a new Steampunk-themed series in development that is an exciting foray into fan-inspired and fan-created television.

Achievements

• Boxleitner is known as an actor, who starred in numerous TV series and films. Since the 1970s, Boxleitner has appeared in numerous films and television movies, but is best known to audiences as CIA agent Lee Stetson in Scarecrow & Mrs. King and Captain John Sheridan in Babylon 5. With the publication of Frontier Earth in 1999, Boxleitner became an author, expanding his interest in science fiction and westerns from the screen to the printed page.
  
  Among his achievements, Boxleitner shared Best Actor in a Television Series honors with David Duchovny of The X-Files at the annual Sci-Fi Universe Magazine Reader’s Choice Award. He has been a keynote speaker at the International Space Development Conference and has also been known to speak out elsewhere on the importance of space.
  
  Bruce Boxleitner was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City in April 2012. He was honored for his illustrious career in western films. He is also a two-time recipient of the Wrangler Award.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Frontier Earth: Searcher

    (In the sequel to Frontier Earth, the extraterrestrial bei...)

    2001
  • Frontier Earth

    (An alien sent to warn Earth of an invasion lands in Tombs...)

    1999

• movie

  • The Babe

    (The man behind the myths - baseball's legendary slugger B...)

    1992
  • Transmorphers: Fall of Man

    (When Earth's humanoid robot population is re-programmed t...)

    2008
  • Babylon 5 Season 3

    (In 2259, Babylon 5's captain declares the station an inde...)

    1996
  • Gods and Generals

    (A sweeping epic charting the early years of the Civil War...)

    2003
  • Red River

    (An ego-driven cattle baron fights with his foster son on ...)

    1988
  • Sixpack Annie 1975
  • The Baltimore Bullet 1980
  • Tron 1982
  • Angel in Green 1987
  • Murderous Vision 1991
  • Kuffs 1992
  • The Perfect Nanny 2000
  • Contagion 2002
  • Snakehead Terror 2004

Views

Quotations: "A show needs time to find an audience, and they're very quick to pull them off the air now."

"A storyteller is basically what actors and writers are."

"As a boy, I didn't need a lot of playmates to have a good time."

"Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again."

"Certainly, because the computer and computer language was still not as common as it is today. That's one of the reasons I believe Tron wasn't as popular back then as it is today."

"I can't believe we're in the middle of the fifth season, and if this is all there is, my God, it went fast."

"I enjoy working with Melissa a great deal. We're always looking for projects to do together. I was happy to have her do the show, because she doesn't normally do episodic unless she's starring, and I was very happy with the results."

"I just always had a love for television and movies."

Membership

Boxleitner is a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Screen Actors Guild.

Interests

• Sport & Clubs

  Horseback riding, hiking

Connections

Boxleitner was married three times. He was first married to Kathryn (Kitty) Holcomb Ogilvy, an actress. But the couple divorced in 1987. They had two sons together, Sam and Lee.

On January 1, 1995, Bruce married Melissa Gilbert, an actress. In 2011, the couple also broke up. They had one son, Michael.

In 2016, Bruce married his third wife Verena King-Boxleitner.

ex-wife:

Kathryn Holcomb

Kathryn Holcomb is an American actress. She co-starred with Bruce on How The West Was Won as his on-screen sister Laura.

ex-wife:

Melissa Gilbert

Born on May 8, 1964

Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress and television director.

Wife:

Verena King-Boxleitner

Son:

Michael Boxleitner

Born in 1995

Son:

Sam Boxleitner

Born in 1980

Son:

Lee Boxleitner

Born in 1985

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.
  2010