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William Atherton
William Atherton
	Atherton in 2009
Born	William Atherton Knight; July 30, 1947 (age 77); Orange, Connecticut, U.S.
Education	Carnegie Mellon University (BFA)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1972–present
Spouse	Bobbi Goldin (m. 1980)

William Atherton (born July 30, 1947) is an American actor. He had starring roles in The Sugarland Express (1974), The Day of the Locust (1975), The Hindenburg (1975) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), but is most recognized for what have become iconic roles in the Ghostbusters and Die Hard film series.

Early life

Atherton was born July 30, 1947, in Orange, Connecticut. He studied acting at the Drama School at Carnegie Tech and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1969.^[3]

Career

Atherton was successful on the New York stage immediately after graduating and worked with many of the country's leading playwrights including David Rabe, John Guare, and Arthur Miller, winning numerous awards for his work on and off Broadway.^[4]

He got his big break playing hapless fugitive Clovis Poplin in The Sugarland Express (1974), the feature film debut of Steven Spielberg.^[5] After this, he garnered major roles in dark dramas such as The Day of the Locust (1975) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977),^[6] as well as the big-budget disaster film The Hindenburg (1975).^[7] The Day of the Locust had a troubled production; he walked off the set in frustration and refused to film his final scene.^[8] He provided lead vocals for "What'll I Do", the main title theme for the Robert Redford film version of The Great Gatsby.

Atherton also starred as cowboy Jim Lloyd in the miniseries Centennial (1978), based on the novel by James Michener. He appeared in the comedy Ghostbusters (1984) as the officious and condescending EPA agent Walter Peck.

Martha Coolidge chose Atherton to play Professor Jerry Hathaway in the teen comedy Real Genius (1985) and Ivan Reitman picked him to play Chelsea Deardon's father Sebastian in Legal Eagles (1986). Atherton played reporter Richard "Dick" Thornburg in the blockbuster action film Die Hard (1988), and reprised the role in its sequel Die Hard 2 (1990).^[9]

Other film credits include No Mercy (1986), The Pelican Brief (1993), Bio-Dome (1996), Mad City (1997), The Crow: Salvation (2000), The Last Samurai (2003), Grim Prairie Tales (1990), the TV movies Buried Alive (1990), Headspace (2005) and Virus (1995). He has also made guest appearances on such television series as The Twilight Zone, Murder, She Wrote, Desperate Housewives, Law & Order, The Equalizer, Boston Legal, Castle and Monk. Atherton provided the voice of Dr. Destiny on Justice League. He had a recurring role in NBC's detective drama Life.

His 2007 appearances included the film The Girl Next Door, an adaptation of the best-selling Jack Ketchum novel of the same name. He also reprised his role as Walter Peck in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, released on June 16, 2009.^[10]

Atherton was cast in the final season of ABC's Lost.^[11] He appeared in the musical Gigi for the Reprise Theatre in Los Angeles as "Honoré Lachailles" in 2011.^[12]

Following his work on the musical, he stepped into a comedic role in Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012), produced by Will Ferrell's Funny or Die, Gary Sanchez Productions and Abso Lutely Productions.^[13]^[14]

In summer 2014, Atherton was cast in a recurring role as Viceroy Mercado in the Syfy series Defiance's second season.

Atherton co-starred in the 2017 Netflix thriller, Clinical,^[15] and appears in several upcoming documentaries on his most iconic films. The first to be released is the 2019 Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters which features the original 1984 cast.^[16]

Personal life

Atherton has been married to writer Bobbi Goldin since December 8, 1980.^[17] On The Phil Donahue Show in 1981, Atherton claimed that he was once homosexual but changed due to the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel.^[18]

Atherton has sung in various productions in later years. In 2011, he performed "I Remember It Well," a popular song from Gigi with his former Reprise Theater co-star, Millicent Martin, at a sold-out performance in Palm Springs for Michael Childers' One Night Only, benefiting the Jewish Family Service of the Desert.^[19] He returned in 2013 to the same sold-out event to sing the classic, "Isn't It Romantic?"^[20]

Atherton appeared with his former Centennial costar Stephanie Zimbalist in the Gregory Peck Reading Series, a project of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles benefiting the Los Angeles Public Library. Roddy McDowall was host for the event.^[21]

In December 2018, Atherton participated in the Library Foundation's reading of excerpts from book editor and critic, David Kipen's best-seller, Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018.^[22]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1972	The New Centurions	Johnson
1973	Class of '44	Fraternity President
1974	The Great Gatsby	Singing voice for "What'll I Do"
1974	The Sugarland Express	Clovis Michael Poplin
1975	The Day of the Locust	Tod Hackett
1975	The Hindenburg	Karl Boerth
1976	Independence	Benjamin Rush
1977	Looking for Mr. Goodbar	James
1984	Ghostbusters	Walter Peck
1985	Real Genius	Professor Jerry Hathaway
1986	No Mercy	Allan Deveneux
1988	Die Hard	Richard Thornburg
1990	Die Hard 2	Richard Thornburg
1990	Grim Prairie Tales: Hit the Trail... to Terror	Arthur
1991	Oscar	Overton
1993	The Pelican Brief	Bob Gminski
1994	Saints and Sinners	Terence McCone
1994	Frank & Jesse	Allan Pinkerton
1996	Bio-Dome	Dr. Noah Faulkner
1997	Hoodlum	Thomas Dewey
1997	Mad City	Malt Dohlen
1998	Michael Kael vs. the World News Company	James Denit
1999	The Stranger	Arthur
2000	The Crow: Salvation	Nathan Randall
2000	Bread and Roses	Himself – Party Guest	Uncredited
2001	Burning Down the House	Arthur Kranston
2001	Race to Space	Ralph Stanton
2003	The Last Samurai	Winchester Rep
2003	Who's Your Daddy?	Uncle Duncan "Duncay" Mack
2005	Into the Sun	Agent Block
2005	Headspace	Dr. Ira Gold
2007	Kush	King
	Hacia la oscuridad	John
	Totally Baked	Mr. Lyle Funonion	Segment: "FunOnion Boardroom"
	The Girl Next Door	Adult David Moran
2008	Black Crescent Moon	Jo Dexton
2010	The Kane Files: Life of Trial	Daniel Morgan
2012	Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie	Earle Swinter
	Jersey Shore Shark Attack	Dolan
	The Citizen	Winston
2013	Getting Back to Zero
2014	Jinn	Father Westhoff
2017	Clinical	Terry Drummond
2017	Lowlifes
2018	Bad Company
2019	Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters	Himself	Documentary film
2024	Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire	Mayor Walter Peck	^[23]
TBD	Where Did the Adults Go?	The Father

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1978–1979	Centennial	Jim Lloyd	9 episodes Miniseries
1981	The House of Mirth	Lawrence Selden	Television film
1983	Malibu	Stan Harvey	Television film
1985, 1987	The Twilight Zone	Mr. Dundee/Brian Wolfe	2 episodes
1985, 1987, 1991	Murder, She Wrote	Larry Holleran/Greg Dalton/Andy Henley	3 episodes
1987, 1989	The Equalizer	Martin "Alpha" Loeber/Gideon	3 episodes
1990	Buried Alive	Cortland "Cort" van Owen	Television film
1991	Tales from the Crypt	Malcolm Mayflower	Episode: "Easel Kill Ya"
1992	Diagnosis: Murder – Diagnosis of Murder	Eric Walker	Television film
1995	Virus	Dr. Reginald Holloway	Television film
1996	Nash Bridges	Dr. Linus Mills	Episode: "Key Witness"
1997, 1999	The Practice	D.A. Keith Pratt	3 episodes
1998	The Outer Limits	Franklin Murdoch	Episode: "To Tell the Truth"
1999	Introducing Dorothy Dandridge	Darryl Zanuck	Television film
2001	Night Visions	William Price	Episode: "Hate Puppet/Darkness" Segment: "Hate Puppet"
2002, 2004	Law & Order	Don Snyder/Dan Jensen	2 episodes
2003	Justice League	John Dee / Doctor Destiny	2 episodes Voice
2005	Boston Legal	A.D.A. Howard Zale	Episode: "It Girls and Beyond"
2006	Stargate SG-1	Varta	Episode: "Collateral Damage"
2006	Desperate Housewives	Dr. Barr	2 episodes
2007	Numb3rs	Warren Pierce	Episode: "Tabu"
2008	Monk	Commander Nathan Whitaker
2008–2009	Life	Mickey Rayborn	8 episodes
2010	Lost	Principal Donald Reynolds	Episode: "Dr. Linus"
2010	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Ned Bogden	Episode: "Bedtime"
2011	Castle	Dr. Ari Weiss	Episode: "Head Case"
2012	Workaholics	Thor Holmvik	Episode: "The Meat Jerking Beef Boys"
2013	Defiance	Viceroy Berto Mercado	5 episodes