TED McGINLEY

TED McGINLEY Classically handsome actor Ted McGinley appeared in supporting roles on several successful television series, including Happy Days, Love Boat, Dynasty, and Married With Children. He often joined these shows mid-run. Sometimes, the shows had reached their peak and/or were canceled within a few years of his joining the cast. Because of this trend, McGinley was named the patron saint of a website that chronicled this so-called “Jump the Shark” phenomenon. McGinley did not just appear in television shows but also had roles in television movies and on film. One of his most popular film roles was a supporting role as an antagonist in the hit comedy Revenge of the Nerds and two of its sequels. As McGinley told Christian Toto of the Washington Times, “I’ve made a living out of not being the main person. I consider myself a utility player.”

While working as a model, McGinley appeared on boxes of Sun–In hair lightener and a dozen television commercials. Within a short time, he was making his acting debut. McGinley’s first role was as a jogger in an ABC television movie, 1979’s Valentine. Producer-director Garry Marshall soon discovered McGinley and added him to the cast of his hit television show, Happy Days. McGinley joined the show in 1980, playing Roger Phillips, the cousin of main character, Richie Cunningham. McGinley’s Phillips was also a high school English teacher and basketball coach.

Marshall cast McGinley in the 1982 film he was directing, Young Doctors in Love, a parody of the soap opera genre. McGinley played Dr. Bucky De Vol, an orthopedic surgeon who was also a jock. The character was in love with a hooker who favored roller skates. This film led to more roles for McGinley. He appeared in the 1983 television movie The Making of a Male Model with future Dynasty co-star Joan Collins. McGinley also continued to appear on Happy Days until the end of its run in 1984.

As soon as Happy Days ended, McGinley was cast in a role on another hit television series already well into its run, The Love Boat. He played Ashley “Ace” Covington–Evans, the ship’s photographer and social director. McGinley stuck with the show until it was canceled by ABC in 1986. After its end as a television series, The Love Boat continued on in television movies; McGinley appeared in three: The Love Boat: The Christmas Cruise, The Love Boat: The Shipshape Cruise, and The Love Boat: Who Killed Maxwell Thorn?

In 1984, McGinley also had his first significant big-screen role. In the hit comedy Revenge of the Nerds, he played Stan Gable, the quarterback of the fictional college’s football team and president of the Alpha Beta fraternity. McGinley’s Gable was the primary enemy of the nerds at the center of the film. McGinley reprised the role in two sequels aired as television movies, 1992’s Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation and 1994’s Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love.

Until this point, most of McGinley’s significant roles had been in comedies. After the run of The Love Boat ended, he was cast in a role on another production produced by Aaron Spelling, the already–popular prime–time soap opera Dynasty. McGinley spent a little more than a season, 1986–87, playing Clay Falmont, a senator’s son who was both a rebel and a rogue. McGinley believed that this dramatic role helped make him a better actor. During the run, he also volunteered his time to work at a paradise camp for kids suffering from terminal cancer.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McGinley worked on several film and television projects. In 1989, he had a role in the dramatic mystery Physical Evidence, directed by Michael Crichton and starring Burt Reynolds. McGinley played the boyfriend of a female lawyer played by Theresa Russell. McGinley continued to alternate between film and television roles. In 1991, he played Craig Palmer on the short-lived situation comedy Baby Talk. The ABC show was derived from the hit film Look Who’s Talking.

After the end of Baby Talk, McGinley was added to the cast of yet another already–successful show, the over–the–top situation comedy Married With Children on FOX. He played Jefferson D’Arcy, the second husband of Marcy D’Arcy, a controlling career woman, from 1991 until the show ended in 1997. McGinley’s character was a hunky freeloader who was “kept” by his wife. He told Eirik Knutzen of Copley News Service, “I guess I’m part of television history because I have appeared in four successful shows, but I really can’t take the credit because I came in late on all of them. I’ve always been the low man on the totem pole. I’d be thrilled to be part of a TV series from day one and ride that cow until it died.”

During and shortly after the run of Married … With Children, McGinley was a part of many film and television movies, playing different types of characters. In 1993, he played Mr. Scream in Wayne’s World 2. That same year, McGinley used a Southern accent in his role in the miniseries Wild Justice. In 1996, he was the star of Deadly Web, a movie aired on NBC 1996, and co-starred his wife, Gigi Rice. One of McGinley’s darkest roles came in 1998 in the television movie Every Mother’s Worst Fear.

Bigger film roles came McGinley’s way in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1998, he appeared in Major League: Back to the Minors, the third film in the Major League series. He played Leonard Huff, the manager of the Minnesota Twins, who was incompetent, vain, and arrogant.