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Scott Bakula
Bakula at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	Scott Stewart Bakula (1954-10-09) October 9, 1954 (age 70) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1977–present
Spouses	Krista Neumann ​ ​(m. 1981; div. 1995)​ Chelsea Field ​(m. 2009)​
Children	4

Scott Stewart Bakula (/ˈbækjʊlə/; born October 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in two science-fiction television series: as Sam Beckett on Quantum Leap – for which he was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards (winning one) – and as Captain Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise. From 2014 to 2021, he portrayed Special Agent Dwayne Cassius "King" Pride on NCIS: New Orleans.

A Tony Award-nominee for his work on Broadway, Bakula starred in the comedy-drama series Men of a Certain Age and guest-starred in the second and third seasons of NBC's Chuck as the title character's father, Stephen J. Bartowski. From 2014 to 2015, he played entrepreneur Lynn on the HBO show Looking.

Early life

Bakula was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Sally (née Zumwinkel) and Joseph Stewart Bakula (1928–2014), a lawyer. He has a younger brother and a younger sister. The family surname comes from Czech and Slovak ancestry, translating literally to "stick in one's throat" (spelled bakuľa) but also meaning "liar". He attended Jefferson College, followed by the University of Kansas for a time, but left, saying:

...because I was offered a tour of Godspell, a national tour that was from St. Louis. I thought that sounded great, and I went to my parents and I said "I want to do this tour", and they said, "Go ahead, maybe it will get it out of your system. And you come back to school in a year or two, you come back." The tour was gonna start in August and the tour never started and school did, and then the tour fell apart, and there I was sitting at home. So I was left holding the bag, basically, and then had to decide where to go from there. And I applied, was applying to other schools. I was gonna go to a Mormon theatrical kind of school, and the more I looked at it the more I spent time examining the school side of it. I just realized what I really needed to do was just pick up, pack up and go to New York.

Career

Bakula moved to New York City in 1976. He made his professional debut in the 1977 national tour of the musical Shenandoah. He made his Broadway debut in 1982 as an understudy in the short-lived musical Is There Life After High School? The following year, he appeared as baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in Marilyn: An American Fable, which only ran 17 performances. He received a shared Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Ensemble Acting for his performance in the 1985 Off-Broadway production of Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down; he would later appear in its Pasadena Playhouse production. The success of Three Guys Off-Broadway brought him attention, and when his next show, the musical Nightclub Confidential, which co-starred his wife Krista Neumann, moved to Los Angeles, he moved there at the urging of his California agent, Maggie Henderson, and his New York agent, Jerry Hogan. As Bakula recalled in 2000:

I call up and said I got a show, I'm gonna be out there, I'm coming out in January. So it'll work out because it's time for pilot season and I'll be doing something so people can come and see me. ... And then I coincidentally had done a Disney Sunday Night ABC movie that was gonna come out some time in the winter. It was the time to go. Came out here on New Year's Day, 1986. The show I did turned out to be a big hit out here. It got me a lot of attention out here and I jumped onto the TV sitcom Designing Women in the beginning and was able to do that pilot ... and things kind of took off.

He was cast in two short-lived series: Gung Ho and Eisenhower & Lutz. During a Hollywood writers' strike in 1988, he returned to New York to star in Romance/Romance on Broadway, which ran from May 1, 1988, to January 15, 1989. For his performance as Alfred Von Wilmers and Sam, he was nominated for the 1988 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Afterward, he landed the lead role opposite co-star Dean Stockwell in the science fiction television series Quantum Leap (1989–1993). Bakula played time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett, who was trapped by a malfunction of his time machine to correct things gone wrong in the past. His performance in the show earned him a Golden Globe Award (along with three nominations) and four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, as well as five consecutive Viewers for Quality Television Awards for Best Actor in a Quality Drama Series.

From 1993 to 1995, he played Peter Hunt, a reporter and occasional love interest on the sitcom Murphy Brown. In 1995, Bakula appeared on the cover of Playgirl. He played the titular Mr. Smith in the sole season of Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 1996. He voiced Danny Cat in the animated film Cats Don't Dance (1997). He played the aging veteran pitcher Gus Cantrell in Major League: Back to the Minors (1998), the final movie in the Major League trilogy. He also played Jim Olmeyer, the same-sex partner of Sam Robards' Jim Berkley, in the film American Beauty (1999).

Bakula played Jonathan Archer, captain of Earth's first Warp 5 interstellar starship, on Star Trek: Enterprise from 2001 to 2005. In 2006, he reprised the role of Archer for the Star Trek: Legacy PC and Xbox 360 video games as a voice-over.

Bakula starred in the musical Shenandoah, a play which also provided his first professional theatrical role in 1976, at Ford's Theatre, in 2006. Bakula is heard singing "Pig Island" on Sandra Boynton's children's CD Philadelphia Chickens, which is labeled as being "For all ages except 43." Scott Bakula said that he might be starring as Sam in a Quantum Leap film as stated in TV Guide Magazine along with Dean Stockwell. At Comic Con 2010, he announced that a script was being worked on and that while he would be in the movie, he would not have the main role.

Bakula performed various songs from his career for a one-night-only performance entitled An Evening with Scott Bakula at Sidney Harman Hall on January 18, 2008, as a benefit for the restoration of the historic Ford's Theater. Bakula had three appearances in 2008. He appeared as Atty. Jack Ross in an episode of Boston Legal, "Glow in the Dark", which aired on February 12, 2008, on the ABC network. From March 4 – April 20, he starred as Tony Hunter in the world premiere of Dancing in the Dark at The Old Globe in San Diego, California. Dancing in the Dark is based on the movie The Band Wagon (1953). Bakula appeared as the character Chris Fulbright in the five-episode run of the Tracey Ullman sketch comedy series State of the Union on Showtime.

Bakula appeared in the dark comedy film The Informant! (2009) as Brian Shepard, an FBI agent. In April 2009, he began a recurring role on the television series Chuck as Stephen J. Bartowski, the eponymous character's long-lost father. From July 31 to August 2, 2009, he starred as Nathan Detroit in three performances of Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl. Beginning in December 2009, Bakula began appearing as Terry, one of the three lead characters in TNT's hour-long comedy/drama Men of a Certain Age.

In 2011, Bakula performed a voice cameo in the film Source Code as a slight nod to his character on Quantum Leap, with his catchphrase of "Oh, boy." and appeared in the feature-length documentary The Captains, which was written and directed by William Shatner, Bakula is interviewed by the original Star Trek captain about his life and career leading up to his performances as Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. In the movie, Shatner interviews Bakula at his ranch in California where they discuss the pitfalls that come with a career in television.

In September 2011, Bakula starred in Terrible Advice by Saul Rubinek at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In April to May 2012, he guest starred in the last five episodes of Desperate Housewives as Bree Van de Kamp's criminal defense lawyer and third husband. In April 2013, he made a guest appearance on Two and a Half Men as a sleazy car dealer, Jerry. In August 2013, it was announced Bakula would have a recurring role in the first season of HBO's new series Looking. He also appeared in the film Geography Club (2013).

In February 2014, Bakula was cast as the lead in a backdoor pilot for the NCIS spin-off series, NCIS: New Orleans, which began as a two-part episode of its parent series in the spring season of 2014.

In 2016 Bakula appeared as a guest judge on the HGTV show Brothers Take New Orleans with Property Brothers hosts Jonathan and Drew Scott.

He made a cameo appearance as himself in the season 12 opening episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

In October 2023, it was announced Bakula would return to the New York stage in the world premiere of The Connector, featuring music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and book by Jonathan Marc Sherman, and directed by Daisy Prince. The show was performed from January 12, 2024, through March 17 at the MCC Theater.

In August 2024, Bakula played the title role in a production of Man of La Mancha in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Personal life

Bakula married Krista Neumann in 1981. They had two children before divorcing in 1995. He married actress Chelsea Field in 2009 after a 15-year relationship. Bakula and Field have two children.

Bakula says he was "hardly ever home for four and a half seasons" of Quantum Leap, so he chose to prioritize his family life on later projects. His Star Trek: Enterprise contract required that filming be completed by 6 p.m. every Wednesday so he could have dinner with his family. During filming of NCIS: New Orleans, he returned home to Los Angeles every weekend to spend time with his wife.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards and nominations

References

1. "UPI Almanac for Thursday, October 9, 2014". United Press International. October 9, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2021. Scott Bakula ... born in 1954 (age 60)
2. "Actor Scott Bakula takes the city by storm to launch his new movie". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 17, 1998. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
3. "Zumwinkel, Edwin F". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. November 4, 2008. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
4. Holleman, Joe (June 5, 2014). "J. Stewart Bakula, Scott Bakula's father, died Monday". STLtoday.com. Archived from the original on March 22, 2020. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
5. Bakula (1946). "Missouri, World War II Draft Registration Cards,1940–1945". FamilySearch.
6. ^ "Complete, Unexpurgated Transcript of the Scott Bakula Interview from the SCI FI Program Sciographpy: Quantum Leap". Quantum Leap official site (Sci Fi Channel). August 13, 2000. Archived from the original on July 14, 2006.
7. "FamilySearch.org". ancestors.familysearch.org. Archived from the original on June 10, 2024. Retrieved June 10, 2024.
8. "Scott Bakula". TV Guide.
9. "Back Home With Scott Bakula". Webster-Kirkwood Times Online. June 21, 2002. Archived from the original on October 8, 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
10. "Scott Bakula – Broadway Cast & Staff". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on December 8, 2023. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
11. "Is there life after high school? – Broadway Musical – Original". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
12. "Marilyn – Broadway Musical – Original". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on January 20, 2022. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
13. "Scott Bakula – Broadway Cast & Staff". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
14. "Scott Bakula Biography". Archival Universal Television official biography via Quantum Leap official site (Sci Fi Channel). Archived from the original on July 12, 2006.
15. ^ "Complete, Unexpurgated Transcript", p. 3
16. "Romance / Romance – Broadway Musical – Original". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on March 30, 2022. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
17. "Scott Bakula – Broadway Cast & Staff". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on December 8, 2023. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
18. O'Connor, John J. (November 22, 1989). "Review/Television; An Actor's 'Quantum Leap' Through Times and Roles". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 20, 2013. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
19. "IMDb". IMDb. Archived from the original on August 3, 2022. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
20. "Scott Bakula says Quantum Leap movie is in the works".
21. "'An Evening with Scott Bakula' at Ford's Theatre Jan.18". DC.BroadwayWorld.com. December 5, 2007. Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
22. "Daily News Releases". Abcmedianet.com. Archived from the original on May 31, 2008. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
23. "Dancing in the Dark" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 10, 2012. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
24. "The Informant opening". Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved April 10, 2008.
25. Meredith Woerner (April 4, 2011). "Duncan Jones tells us what really happened at the end of Source Code". io9. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved August 4, 2011.
26. "Exclusive Clips from William Shatner's 'The Captains'". Trekmovie.com.
27. Archived August 8, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Broadway World announces Scott Bakula joins Terrible Advice Retrieved May 30, 2018.
28. , Guardian Review of Scott Bakula's West End debut in Terrible Advice retrieved May 30, 2018.
29. Nellie Andreeva (August 23, 2013). "Scott Bakula Joins HBO's Michael Lannan Dramedy Series, Now Titled 'Looking'". Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved March 9, 2014.
30. "'NCIS' scoop: Scott Bakula to star in new spinoff". EW.com. Archived from the original on February 3, 2014. Retrieved December 17, 2014.
31. "Jonathan and Drew Scott Take on a New Orleans Design Challenge". hgtv.com. Archived from the original on October 3, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
32. "The Connector". Archived from the original on April 28, 2024. Retrieved April 28, 2024.
33. "Scott Bakula Starring in Peterborough Players' Man of La Mancha". April 9, 2024. Archived from the original on May 16, 2024. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
34. "A Message from Scott Bakula and Chelsea Field". YouTube. Peterborough Players. Archived from the original on May 16, 2024. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
35. Stein, Megan (December 17, 2019). "NCIS: New Orleans Star Scott Bakula Is Actually Married to an Actress From the Show". Country Living. Archived from the original on June 4, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
36. "NCIS: New Orleans' Scott Bakula on Why He Puts His Family First". November 24, 2015. Archived from the original on May 18, 2016. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
37. "3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down Original Off-Broadway Musical Cast 1985 | Off-Broadway World". Archived from the original on March 23, 2023. Retrieved March 23, 2023.
38. Floyd, Thomas (September 18, 2024). "Playing Abe Lincoln at Ford's Theatre? Scott Bakula is taking the leap". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 25, 2024.
39. "Nominees and Recipients – 1985 Awards". Drama Desk Awards. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
40. "Scott Bakula". Golden Globe Awards. Archived from the original on January 13, 2024. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
41. "13th Annual TV Awards (2008-09)". Online Film & Television Association. Archived from the original on April 9, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
42. "17th Annual TV Awards (2012-13)". Online Film & Television Association. Archived from the original on August 9, 2019. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
43. "Nominees Full List". Archived from the original on November 8, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
44. "Scott Bakula". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
45. "'Potter' leads Saturn kudos". Variety. March 13, 2002. Archived from the original on July 3, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
46. Phillips, Jevon (March 6, 2003). "'Towers', 'Report' top Saturn nominees". Variety. Archived from the original on January 6, 2022. Retrieved March 6, 2003.
47. Morfoot, Addie (February 17, 2004). "Saturns' rings around 'King' with 13 noms". Variety. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. Retrieved February 17, 2004.
48. "1988 Tony Awards". Tony Awards. Archived from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved February 20, 2024.

External links

• Scott Bakula at IMDb 
• Scott Bakula at the Internet Broadway Database
• Scott Bakula at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Scott Bakula 2000 Interview on Sidewalks Entertainment
• "Great Scott: A Conversation with Scott Bakula". The Complete Quantum Leap: The Official Publication of the Show. MCA Publishing via Quantum Leap official site (Sci Fi Channel). Archived from the original on July 12, 2006.

• Biography
• Speculative fiction
• Television
• Film
• Theatre
• United States

• 1954 births
• 20th-century American male actors
• 21st-century American male actors
• American male film actors
• American male musical theatre actors
• American male stage actors
• American male television actors
• American male voice actors
• American people of Czech descent
• American people of Slovak descent
• Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (television) winners
• Jefferson College (Missouri) alumni
• Living people
• Male actors from St. Louis
• University of Kansas alumni