Ken Howard

There are some people who appear to be split into two parts of their career. Ken Howard, star of stage and the screen production of 1776, seems like a different person than Ken Howard, recurring performer on Crossing Jordan and the person who was president of the union during the SAG merger with AFTRA. (The only person to die in office as SAG president.) Part of it was a bit of middle-age spread between 1972 and 2001. Though I’ll also admit part of it is that he is, on Crossing Jordan, about the only person who’s even trying a Boston accent. It’s not a good one.

This is largely because Howard was born in Southern California, not far from the Mexican border. He then moved to Manhasset, New York. In high school, he was the only white starter on the basketball team, which gave the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Howard the nickname of “the White Shadow,” later the name of a TV show on which he starred. He was offered multiple basketball scholarships, choosing instead to go to Amherst for actual academics—though he was, yes, also captain of the Amherst basketball team. He attended the Yale School of Drama, but he left without graduating because, you know, he got a role on Broadway instead. He did get his Masters in 1999, however.

He won a Tony for the horror play Child’s Play. Which sounds bonkers and I want to see it. He originated the role of Thomas Jefferson on Broadway before playing the role in the movie version. It wasn’t his first movie role; he was second-billed in Otto Preminger’s Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. However, it’s probably his most iconic. He would also play Jefferson in a short called “Bicentennial” which has an extremely wild cast, not to mention historical figures such as Asa Bird Gardiner, Warren G. Harding, and Mark Twain in assorted movies, TV shows, and plays.

And, of course, he’s Max Cavanaugh. Husband of a murdered wife, father of a scarred daughter. Ex-cop with a history of violence. Bar owner. Developer of a “game” where he and his daughter imagine themselves into mysteries. They solve cases that other people can’t solve, and the show is aware that it’s creepy but goes along with it anyway. The relationship between Max and Jordan explains quite a lot about who she is as an adult. It also makes you wonder a lot about her childhood; it’s unlikely he really understood how to parent.

Howard is one of those people who it feels should be better remembered. He had a long career that bounced between the distinguished and the merely popular—he was a recurring character on Melrose Place, for heaven’s sake. He did an episode of Batman: The Animated Series and a whopping six of Murder, She Wrote. Not only that, he was a good union man—a member of SAG for over forty years, and as established union president. Even if his Boston accent was truly awful.