Richard Gant

American actor of commanding presence and powerful voice, prolific on screen since 1980 and frequently cast in authoritarian roles as judges, attorneys, police chiefs or senior military officers. Richard Edward Gant graduated from California State University - East Bay with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual and Performing Arts and from Samuel Merritt University in 1967 with an Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts and Afro-American Studies. Gant spent four years in the Air Force as a radar operator, before moving to New York to work off-Broadway as actor and director on some 35 productions. In 1978, he appeared alongside Morgan Freeman and Dorian Harewood in The Mighty Gents, a play about the decline of a once-feared Newark black youth gang. In films, he is perhaps best known as retired boxing promoter and manager George Washington Duke (the main antagonist in Rocky V (1990)), a role for which he was handpicked by Sylvester Stallone. Gant's notable TV appearances have included the ill-fated livery stable owner Arnette Hostetler in HBO's Deadwood (2004); Captain Richard Page, commander of Special Unit 2 (2001), a secret police task force battling mythological entities in Chicago; Captain Edward "Mackie" MacDougan, an Earthforce commander sympathetic to Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) in Babylon 5 (1993); Dr. Russell Ford in the popular daytime soap General Hospital (1963); car dealership owner Owen Thoreau Sr., Andre Braugher's on-screen father in Men of a Certain Age (2009) and snarky English teacher Ray Hayward in Mr. Iglesias (2019). His numerous guest roles have included appearances in Miami Vice (1984), L.A. Law (1986), NYPD Blue (1993), Smallville (2001), Charmed (1998) and, more recently, NCIS: Los Angeles (2009). In 2006, Gant co-founded PanAfricanist, a digital solutions company which focuses "on designing and developing cultural connectivity infrastructures." He is married to the costume designer and director Arline Burks Gant.