Stephen Macht — Acting | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

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Stephen Robert Macht is an American television and film actor. Spotted by a Universal Studios talent scout while starring at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada in 1975, Macht was signed to a contract and by the mid 1970s had left teaching and was making frequent appearances in TV episodes and movies.

In Raid on Entebbe, he portrayed Yoni Netanyahu, the Israeli officer killed in the rescue of hostages in Uganda. In 1978, he had a lead role in The Immigrants a syndicated miniseries about the rise of the son of Italian immigrants in turn-of-the-century San Francisco.

The successful television movie American Dream led to a critically acclaimed short-lived series which cast Macht in the role of a family man who chucks the suburban life to set up home in the inner city of Chicago. The following season, he landed the role of Joe Cooper, on Knots Landing. Other notable roles included playing Nancy McKeon's father in Strange Voices. He was Benedict Arnold in the miniseries George Washington and played one of the survivors of an air crash in Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac. He spent three seasons on Cagney & Lacey. During his run on the show, he moved behind the cameras to make his directorial debut. In 1993, Macht played Krim Aldos in "The Siege", an early Season 2 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Macht had been Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the role eventually went to Patrick Stewart in 1986.

More recent credits have included A Friendship in Vienna; Memories of Midnight, and in Moment of Truth: A Mother's Deception. Macht appeared in Babylon 5, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and Suits.

Macht's work in feature films has been more sporadic, beginning with a turn as one of The Choirboys. He also had roles in Nightwing, The Mountain Men, Galaxina, The Last Winter, The Monster Squad, Stephen King's Graveyard Shift, Amityville: It's About Time, The Legend of Galgameth, and Watchers Reborn. Macht has also played Dr. Harris in three instalments of the Trancers series of films.