Ted Danson

Danson in 2018
Ted Danson
Born	Edward Bridge Danson III 12/29/1947
Birthplace	San Diego, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actor
Known for	Cheers; Becker; CSI: Crime Scene Investigation; The Good Place
Education	Carnegie Mellon University (BFA)
Spouse(s)	Mary Steenburgen (m. 1995)
Children	2
Awards	Primetime Emmy Award; Golden Globe Award; Carol Burnett Award

Edward Bridge Danson III (born December 29, 1947), known professionally as Ted Danson, is an American actor whose career spans five decades of film and television. He rose to prominence playing the bartender Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1982–1993), a role that earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards and established him as one of the most recognizable television performers of his generation. Following Cheers, Danson sustained a long career across genres, headlining the CBS sitcom Becker (1998–2004) and joining established dramas such as the FX legal series Damages (2007–2010), the CBS procedural CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2011–2015), and its spin-off CSI: Cyber (2015–2016). In the second half of the 2010s and into the 2020s, he reached a new generation of viewers through the NBC comedy The Good Place (2016–2020) and the Netflix comedy A Man on the Inside (2024–present). His film credits include The Onion Field (1979), Body Heat (1981), Three Men and a Baby (1987), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Outside acting, Danson has been active in ocean conservation for several decades and is the co-author of a 2011 book on the subject. He has been married to actress Mary Steenburgen since 1995.

Early Life

Danson was born on December 29, 1947, in San Diego, California. He was raised primarily in Flagstaff, Arizona, where his father, Edward Bridge Danson Jr., worked as an archaeologist and museum director. His upbringing in the American Southwest, in proximity to Native American communities and his father's archaeological work, exposed him to a worldview that he has cited as formative for his later environmental activism.

Danson attended Kent School, a boarding school in Connecticut, before enrolling at Stanford University. He left Stanford after two years to pursue acting and transferred to the drama program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from which he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Carnegie Mellon later recognized him as a distinguished alumnus.

Career

Early work and film debut

After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, Danson moved to New York City to pursue stage and television work. He appeared in commercials and in the daytime soap operas Somerset and The Doctors in the mid-1970s. He made his feature film debut in the 1979 crime drama The Onion Field, in which he played a Los Angeles police officer. He followed this with a supporting role in the Lawrence Kasdan-directed neo-noir Body Heat (1981), opposite William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, and appeared in the George A. Romero–Stephen King horror anthology Creepshow (1982).

Cheers

Danson was cast as Sam Malone, a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox turned bar owner, in the NBC sitcom Cheers, which premiered in September 1982. The series, created by James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles, ran for eleven seasons until May 1993 and grew from low-rated beginnings into one of the most acclaimed sitcoms in American television history. Danson received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards for the role.

By the early 1990s, Danson was among the highest-paid actors on American television. Industry reporting at the time placed his salary near the top of the medium. Reflecting decades later in 2026, Danson said it took him roughly two years on Cheers to accept that audiences viewed him as a sex symbol, a perception that contrasted with his self-image at the time.

Film roles in the 1980s and 1990s

During and after Cheers, Danson worked steadily in film. He starred with Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg in the Leonard Nimoy–directed comedy Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990). Other film credits from the period include the family drama Dad (1989), in which he played opposite Jack Lemmon, and Steven Spielberg's war film Saving Private Ryan (1998), in which he had a supporting role as Captain Hamill.

Becker and post-Cheers television

Following the end of Cheers, Danson returned to series television in the CBS sitcom Becker (1998–2004), in which he played John Becker, a cantankerous Bronx-based doctor. The series ran for six seasons. He also joined the cast of the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm as a recurring fictionalized version of himself, appearing intermittently from 2000 through the show's final season in 2024.

In 2007, Danson joined the FX legal thriller Damages opposite Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, playing the corrupt billionaire Arthur Frobisher. The role brought him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and a return to dramatic television. From 2009 to 2011, he co-starred in the HBO comedy Bored to Death alongside Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis as the magazine editor George Christopher.

CSI, Fargo, and later television

In 2011, Danson joined the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as D.B. Russell, a forensic supervisor, replacing Laurence Fishburne as the lead. He remained with the series until its conclusion in 2015 and continued the role on the short-lived spin-off CSI: Cyber (2015–2016).

In 2015, Danson appeared in the second season of the FX anthology series Fargo, playing Hank Larsson, a small-town Minnesota sheriff. Critics noted the role as a departure from his comedic typecasting.

From 2016 to 2020, Danson starred in the NBC fantasy comedy The Good Place, created by Michael Schur, as Michael, an architect of the afterlife. The role brought him two further Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He next reunited with Schur on the Netflix comedy A Man on the Inside (2024–present), in which he plays a widowed retiree recruited as a private-investigation mole inside a San Francisco retirement community. He also starred in the NBC sitcom Mr. Mayor (2021–2022), created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, in which he played the mayor of Los Angeles.

In May 2026, it was reported that Danson would join Elizabeth Banks in an Apple TV+ comedy series from creators Liz Heldens and Matt Ward. Subsequent casting added Katey Sagal to the project.

Personal Life

Danson has been married three times. He married Randall Gosch (Randy Danson) in 1970; the marriage ended in divorce in 1975. He married producer Cassandra Coates in 1977; they had two daughters together and divorced in 1993. Reporting on the divorce settlement at the time described it as among the largest celebrity divorce settlements of the era.

During the final years of Cheers, Danson began a relationship with actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg. The relationship ended publicly in 1993 after Danson appeared in blackface during a Friars Club roast of Goldberg in New York; the routine drew immediate criticism. In 2026, Danson revisited the incident on a podcast, saying that he wanted to "apologize for the rest of my life" and describing the routine as "so arrogant and stupid."

Danson married actress Mary Steenburgen in 1995; the couple met while filming the comedy Pontiac Moon. Danson has recounted that, prior to the marriage, President Bill Clinton — a longtime friend of Steenburgen's from Arkansas — questioned him about his intentions toward her, an episode he has described as involving the Secret Service. His stepchildren through Steenburgen include filmmaker Charlie McDowell.

Danson is registered with the Democratic Party and has been active in Democratic campaigns. He campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008 and stumped for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania during the 2016 presidential campaign, including opening a campaign office in Lancaster.

Activism

Danson has been involved in ocean conservation since the late 1980s. In 1987, he co-founded the American Oceans Campaign, which in 2002 merged with the international advocacy organization Oceana, on whose board Danson sits. He has spoken publicly and testified on issues including offshore drilling, marine pollution, and overfishing.

In 2011, Danson published Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them, written with journalist Michael D'Orso, which surveyed threats to marine ecosystems and the science and policy responses to them.

Recognition

Danson has received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards for his work on Cheers. He has received additional Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Damages and The Good Place.

In 2003, Carnegie Mellon University honored Danson as a distinguished alumnus. In 2025, the Television Academy presented him with the Carol Burnett Award, recognizing career achievement in television, and Danson and his wife Mary Steenburgen jointly received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards.

The Paley Center for Media has preserved episodes of his work, including material from Cheers, in its collection.