Mark Harmon

At 72 years old, Mark Harmon has this physical status:

Thomas Mark Harmon (born September 2, 1951) is an American television and film actor.

He has appeared in a wide variety of roles since the early 1970s.

Initially a college football player, his role on St. Elsewhere led to his being named "Sexiest Man Alive" by People in 1986.

After spending the majority of the 1990s as a character actor, he played Secret Service special agent Simon Donovan in The West Wing, receiving a 2002 Emmy Award nomination for his acting in a four-episode story arc.Harmon was cast in a similar role a year later.

The creator of both JAG and NCIS had seen Harmon in The West Wing and decided to cast him in NCIS.

Harmon's character of NCIS special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs was first introduced in a guest starring role in two episodes of JAG.

Since 2003, Harmon has starred in NCIS as the same character.

Early life

Harmon was born in Burbank, California, the youngest of three children. His parents were Heisman Trophy–winning football player and broadcaster Tom Harmon and actress, model, and artist Elyse Knox (née Elsie Lillian Kornbrath). Harmon had two older sisters, the late actress and painter Kristin Nelson, who was divorced from the late singer Rick Nelson, and actress and model Kelly Harmon, formerly married to car magnate John DeLorean. His maternal grandparents were Austrian immigrants.

After his high school graduation from Harvard-Westlake School in 1970, Harmon completed a two-year associate degree at Pierce College in Los Angeles. After his second season at Pierce, 1971, Harmon received offers from major college football programs, ultimately choosing UCLA over Oklahoma, even though in the previous season, 1971, the Sooners finished second in the nation, while the Bruins had stumbled to a 2–7–1 record, placing last in the Pac-8.

After transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles, he started at quarterback for the 1972 and 1973 Bruins.

During his first game, his UCLA team produced a stunning upset of the two-time defending national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Bruins were an eighteen-point home underdog to the top-ranked Huskers but won 20–17 on a late field goal by Efren Herrera under the lights of L.A. Coliseum.

In his senior year, Harmon received the National Football Foundation Award for All-Round Excellence. During his two years as quarterback in coach Pepper Rodgers's wishbone offense, UCLA compiled a 17–5 record (.773). Harmon graduated cum laude from UCLA in 1974 with a B.A. in Communications.

He was inducted into the inaugural class of the Pierce College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010.

Personal life

Harmon is the son of football player Tom Harmon and actress Elyse Knox. His sisters are Kelly, an actress and model, and Kristin, an actress and painter. Kristin died of a heart attack on April 27, 2018.

Harmon worked as a carpenter before making a success of his acting career.

Harmon has been married to actress Pam Dawber since March 21, 1987. The couple have two sons. Their son Sean has played a young Gibbs in several NCIS episodes, They maintain a low profile and rarely appear in public with their children. Harmon was the brother-in-law of Ricky Nelson and John DeLorean and is the uncle of actress Tracy Nelson and singers Matthew and Gunnar Nelson of the rock duo Nelson.

In 1987, Harmon filed for custody of his nephew Sam, Kristin's son, on the grounds that she was incapable of good parenting. Sam's psychiatrist testified that the thirteen-year-old boy depicted his mother as a dragon and complained about her mood swings and how she prevented him from being with his siblings. Harmon later dropped the custody bid.

In 1988, Harmon was part owner of a minor league baseball team, the San Bernardino Spirit, the same season Ken Griffey Jr. played for the team before his major league call-up to the Seattle Mariners the next season. Harmon used the team and their home field, Fiscalini Field, for the opening and closing scenes of the film in which he was starring, Stealing Home.

In 1996, Harmon saved a teenage boy involved in a car accident outside his Brentwood home. The driver had been able to escape, but the passenger was trapped in the burning car. Harmon used a sledgehammer from his garage to break the window of the car and pulled the passenger, who suffered burns to 30% of his body, from the flames.

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Career

Harmon thought about pursuing a career in advertising or law after college. Harmon started his career as a merchandising producer but soon decided to change to acting. The bulk of his career was spent portraying law enforcement and emergency personnel. Tom Harmon, Kellogg's Product 19 cereal's long-serving TV spokesman, was involved in one of his first national TV appearances (other than as an actor). Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson, his sister Kristin Nelson's in-laws, got his first role as an actor in an episode of Ozzie's Girls. In episodes of Adam-12, Police Woman, and Emergency, a guest star appeared. In mid-1975, the first settlers of mid-1975. He appeared in "905-Wild," a backdoor pilot episode for a series about two Los Angeles County Animal Control Officers that did not sell. Jack Webb, the producer and creator of both series, later starred Harmon in Sam, a short-lived 1978 film starring an LAPD officer and his K-9 employee. Harmon received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Support Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his role as Robert Dunlap in the TV series Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years. In 1978, he appeared in three episodes of Centennial as Captain John MacIntosh, an honorable Union cavalry officer.

Harmon appeared on television shows from the mid-1970s, including Laverne & Shirley, Delvecchio, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, and appeared in the films Comes a Horseman (1978) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979). He then appeared on the 1979 action film 240-Robert as Deputy Dwayne Thibideaux. The series revolved around the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Emergency Services Detail's mission, but it was also short-lived.

Harmon appeared in the prime time soap opera Flamingo Road in 1980, where he played Fielding Carlisle, the husband of Morgan Fairchild's character. Despite initially high ratings, the show was cancelled after two seasons. Following its cancellation, he landed the role of Dr. Robert Caldwell on the program St.'s. In 1983, Elsewhere emerged. Harmon appeared on the show for almost three seasons before deciding to leave in early 1986 when his character contracted HIV via unprotected intercourse, one of the first cases where a significant recurring television character contracted the disease. (The character's subsequent off-screen death from AIDS would be confirmed two years later). Harmon was also a spokesperson for Coors Regular beer in the mid-1980s, appearing in television commercials for them.

Harmon's career was also a high point in 1986. He was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine in January. Following his release from St... Elsewhere in February, he appeared in the television films Prince of Bel Air, co-starring Kirstie Alley and The Deliberate Stranger, in which he played serial killer Ted Bundy. He appeared in the 1986 theatrical film Let's Get Harry and played the lead role in the 1987 comedy Summer School, co-starring Kirstie Alley and future JAG and NCIS alum Patrick Labyorteaux. Harmony, who briefly appeared on episodic television in 1987, had a limited role on the film Moonlighting, starring Cybill Shepherd's love interest Sam Crawford for four episodes. After the promise, he appeared in the 1987 TV film After the Promise. He co-starred with Sean Connery and Meg Ryan in the 1988 feature film The Presidio, as well as opposite Jodie Foster in the film Stealing Home. Harmon's film career never gained traction, and after a muted welcome to his 1989 film Worth Winning, he returned to television, appearing in various television films.

On the NBC show Reasonable Doubts, Harmon's next regular television appearance would be as Chicago police detective Dickie Cobb (1991–1993). On the CBS comedy/western film Harts of the West, he appeared in one episode as a rodeo clown, as well as future castmate Sean Murray, who appears in McGee on NCIS.

Harmon appeared in ABC's Charlie Grace, in which he played a private investigator. It was only one season, after which he returned to ensemble medical on the television show Chicago Hope, in which he portrayed Dr. Jack McNeil from 1996 to 2000. In one episode of the 1998 mini-series From the Earth to the Moon, Wally Schirra also portrayed astronaut Wally Schirra.

In a four-episode story arc, Harmon played Secret Service special agent Simon Donovan on The West Wing in May 2002. He received his second Emmy Award nomination, just 25 years after his first. Donald P. Bellisario, the source of JAG and NCIS, was on The West Wing and saw Harmon appear in two episodes of JAG in April 2003, where Harmon was introduced as the character of NCIS agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Harmon has appeared in NCIS as Gibbs, a role that has earned him six nominations at People's Choice Awards, including a nomination for Favorite TV Crime Drama Actor in 2017. Rocky Carroll, Lauren Holly, and Jayne Brook reunited with three of his former Chicago Hope co-stars during his time on the program. He has also been a writer and executive producer since 2008.

Harmon's Gibbs exited the series as a series regular in the fourth episode of the show's nineteenth season, an enactment set in motion by the events of the previous season's finale.

Harmon appeared in the revival of the comedy film Freaky Friday in 2003. Harmon has appeared in several stage productions in Los Angeles and Toronto. He appeared in Wrestlers and The Wager at the Cast Theatre in Los Angeles. He appeared in the late Eighties as part of the cast of the Canadian premiere of the Key Exchange. Several Love Letters productions gave him the opportunity to compete alongside his wife Pam Dawber.

Harmon was the 2,482nd star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 1, 2012. Harmon formed Wings Productions in 2014 to produce NCIS: New Orleans. Harmon is a producer for a new CBS series based on author John Sandford's best-selling Prey books, which have sold more than 30 million copies around the world. The top ten have reached No. 10. 1 on the Best-Seller List of the New York Times.

In 1999 and 2000, Harmon appeared on two episodes of Chicago Hope, as well as two episodes of Boston Public in 2002.

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