MICHAEL IRONSIDE

'Michael Ironside' (born 'Frederick Reginald Ironside'¹ on February 12, 1950) is a Canadian character actor. He has also worked as a producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American works. He is best known for playing villains or "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed sympathetic characters. Ironside is a method actor who keeps in character between takes.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Filmography

Actor

Voice acting

Director

Screenwriter

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Ironside was born in Toronto, Ontario to Patricia June Passmore, a homemaker, and Robert Walter Ironside, who worked in maintenance as a street lighting technician and laborer.^[1][2] He attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and wrote a play at the age of fifteen, "The Shelter", winning the first prize in a university contest.^[3] He also won the Senior writing award for Riverdale Collegiate Institute in 1967.

Career

One of Ironside's first roles was in ''Scanners'', an early film by David Cronenberg. His breakthrough role was in the television miniseries ''V: The Final Battle'' as Ham Tyler. He is also known for his roles in ''Top Gun'' and ''Total Recall''. After a brief stint in ER's inaugural season, he was tapped to replace Roy Scheider as captain of the high-tech submarine seaQuest in the third season of ''seaQuest DSV'' as Captain Oliver Hudson. However, NBC cancelled the series after only thirteen episodes with Ironside as the star.
Ironside has also been recognized for his voice acting. He played the voice of iconic comic book villain Darkseid in '' and its spinoff, ''Justice League'' to great accolade. In one episode of ''The New Batman Adventures'', he voiced Batman in a Dark Knight sequence. Another part he also to happened to play in the DC Comics universe was ''Lois Lane's father'', General Sam Lane in one episode in ''Smallville''
He has also worked in video games as the voice of Tom Clancy's character Sam Fisher in the ''Splinter Cell'' games along with the PSP game '', and is cast as the Global Defense Initiative's Lieutenant General Jack Granger in ''. Ironside recently signed a 5 year deal to portray Captain Jonas Trager in the Spaceworks Television scifi series, ''Ice Planet''.
Ironside was successful as an arm wrestler in his teenage years. It is not known if he still practises the sport. Curiously enough, he has "lost" his left arm in at least two of his films (''Starship Troopers'' and ''The Machinist'') and both arms in a fight with Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in the film ''Total Recall''.

Filmography

Actor

★ ''Scanners'' (1981)

★ ''Visiting Hours'' (1982)

★ '' (1983)

★ ''V: The Final Battle'' (1984)

★ ''V: The Series'' (1984-1985)

★ ''Murder in Space (TV Series)'' (1985)

★ ''Top Gun'' (1986)

★ '' (1987)

★ ''Total Recall'' (1990)

★ '' (1991)

★ ''McBain'' (1991)

★ ''Guncrazy'' (1992)

★ ''Free Willy'' (1993)

★ '' (1993)

★ ''The Next Karate Kid'' (1994)

★ ''Major Payne'' (1995)

★ ''seaQuest 2032'' (1995)

★ ''The Arrow'' (1997)

★ ''Starship Troopers'' (1997)

★ ''Chicago Cab, aka Hellcab'' (1998)

★ ''The Arrangement'' (1999)

★ ''The Omega Code'' (1999)

★ ''The Perfect Storm'' (2000)

★ ''Borderline Normal'' (2000)

★ ''Heavy Metal 2000'' (2000) (voice)

★ ''Walker, Texas Ranger'' (2000) (As the Chairman)

★ '' (2001)

★ ''The Last Chapter'' (2002)

★ ''The Machinist'' (2004)

★ ''Smallville (TV series) (2004)

★ ''Andromeda (TV series)'' (2004)

★ ''Young Blades (2005)

★ ''Desperate Housewives (2005)

★ ''Reeker (2005)

★ ''Deepwater'' (2006)

★ ''Stargate SG-1 (2006)

★ ''Masters of Horror episode The V Word

★ '' (2007) ...as Lieutenant General Jack Granger

Voice acting

★ in animated series

★
★ '' ...as Darkseid

★
★ ''The New Batman Adventures'' ...as "Dark Knight" Batman

★
★ ''Justice League / Justice League Unlimited'' ...as Darkseid

★
★ ''Heavy Metal 2000'' ...as Tyler

★ in video games

★
★ ''RLH'' (2002) ...as Cmdr. Mason

★
★ ''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell'' (2002) ...as Sam Fisher

★
★ '' (2004) ...as Sam Fisher

★
★ '' (2005) ...as Sam Fisher

★
★ '' (2006) ... as Sam Fisher

★
★ '' (2006) ...as Sam Fisher

★
★ ''TimeShift'' (2006) ...as Doctor Krone

★
★ '' (2007) ...as Gen. Jack Granger

★
★ '' (2007) ...as Sam Fisher

Director

★ ''The Arrangement'' (1999)

Screenwriter

★ ''The Arrangement'' (1999)

★ ''Chaindance'' (1990)

References

1. http://theboop.tripod.com/celebrity/Ironside.html
2. http://www.canadianactors.info/michael_ironside_bio_info.htm
3. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800025929/bio

External links

★

★ Michael Ironside Interview at www.sci-fi-online.com

★ MichaelIronsideFans.Net