William Morgan Sheppard

24 Aug, 1932 | London, England

Actor

Biography

William Morgan Sheppard, sometimes credited as W. Morgan Sheppard, is a British actor. Sheppard was born in London, England to an Anglo-Irish family but was educated in Ireland. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art 1956-58 before spending 12 years as Associate Artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He appeared on Broadway in 1966 with "Marat/Sade" and later in 1975 with "Sherlock Holmes". He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for "The Homecoming" in 1995, at the Matrix Theatre. He is the father of actor Mark Sheppard. He appeared in several episodes of different series of Star Trek, notably "The Schizoid Man". An exceptionally versatile character actor, outside of Star Trek he is probably best known for his roles as Blank Reg on Max Headroom and Confederate General Isaac Trimble in the films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. He has appeared in two roles on the sci-fi series Babylon 5 and was an extremely close runner-up for the role of Ambassador G\'Kar on the show, though the role eventually went to Andreas Katsulas. He also played a computer hologram for an A.I. program during the first and second season of seaQuest DSV. He was also one of several Star Trek actors who voiced characters on the animated series Gargoyles, including playing the father of Jonathan Frakes\'s character David Xanatos and as the Norse god Odin. He appeared in two notable episodes of "MacGyver", as the incarcerated (and rather insane) serial killer "Dr. Zito". He appeared in the 1978 TV-film The Nativity. He starred alongside John Terry in the 1980 fantasy film Hawk the Slayer. He also appeared in the 1992 comedy film There Goes the Neighborhood. He narrated the introductions and mission briefings for the first three installments of the Medal of Honor video game series. He also read a passage from the poem Rendezvous, by Alan Seeger, in a commercial for Gears of War 2. He appeared in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (film) as Elvira\'s Great-Uncle Vincent Talbot who was an evil warlock. Sheppard played the role of Captain Archibald Witwicky in the 2007 live action film Transformers. He will also do voice work for John Adams in the upcoming Wii game, The Conduit. Sheppard also appeared in the TV show NCIS, and episode 06.13 - Broken Bird