John de Lancie American Actor Born 1948 in Philadelphia

Early life

John de Lancie was born on 20 March 1948 in Philadelphia, the son of an oboist of the same name who held the principal oboe chair of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1954 to 1977. His mother, Andrea, was French, and his parents had met in Paris. He has a sister.

One of his teachers suggested that acting might suit him. He began performing around the age of fourteen in a school staging of Shakespeare's Henry V. He later studied acting at Kent State University and then won a scholarship to the Juilliard School. Before settling into screen work he performed on stage at venues including the American Shakespeare Festival and the Mark Taper Forum.

Career

His first television part came in 1976 in the miniseries Captains and the Kings. His listed screen credits begin with Little Women in 1978, where he played Frank Vaughn, and include the 1979 film The Onion Field. A longer run followed on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, in which he played Eugene Bradford in episodes between 1982 and 1990. A magazine named his on-screen pairing with co-star Arleen Sorkin "TV's Zaniest Couple" in 1985.

In 1987 he first appeared as Q, a near-omnipotent and mischievous being, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He returned to the role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. His son Keegan de Lancie played Q's child in one Voyager episode. De Lancie has said that although Star Trek was only one part of his working life, it opened many doors for him.

His film work includes The Fisher King (1991), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), Fearless (1993), Multiplicity (1996), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Reign Over Me (2007), Crank: High Voltage (2009) and Gamer (2009). On television he played Frank Simmons in Stargate SG-1 and Donald Margolis, the father of Jane, in Breaking Bad. The most recent title in his listed credits is Buttons (2018).

De Lancie is also a prolific voice actor. He voices Discord, a chaotic but good-natured character, in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and he has lent his voice to a number of animated series and to video games such as Interstate '76, Planescape: Torment, Assassin's Creed III and StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void.

Away from acting, he has narrated with major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he wrote and directed a series of symphonic plays. He made his opera directing debut in 2006 with Puccini's Tosca at the Atlanta Opera. He co-wrote the Star Trek novel I, Q with Peter David and the novel Soldier of Light with Tom Cool, and in 1996 he helped form Alien Voices, a series of audio dramas adapted from classic science fiction. In 2012 he announced a documentary about adult fans of My Little Pony, financed through a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than 322,000 dollars within a month.

Recognition

The American Humanist Association gave him its Humanist Arts Award on 28 May 2016.

Public roles

De Lancie speaks publicly as an advocate for secularism and humanism. He addressed the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C., in June 2016 and was a featured speaker at the CSICon conference in 2019, where he announced an animated series and a play based on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. In 2017 he attended the unveiling of a statue of Clarence Darrow at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee.

Personal life

He has been married to Marnie Mosiman since 1984. They have two sons, Keegan and Owen. He is an experienced sailor who spends time on the Pacific Ocean, and he counts fellow actors Kate Mulgrew and Richard Dean Anderson among his long-time friends.