William Petersen

At 71 years old, William Petersen has this physical status:

William Louis Petersen (born February 21, 1953) is an American actor and producer.

He is best known for his role as Gil Grissom in the CBS drama series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015), for which he received a Screen Actor Guild Award and was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards as a producer of the show.

He appeared in the films To Live and Die in Los Angeles (1985), Manhunter (1990), Young Guns II (1990), Fear (1999), The Contender (2000), Detachment (2011), and Seeking a Friend of the End of the World (2012).

Early life

Petersen was born in Evanston, Illinois, and was the youngest of six children of June (née Hoene; 1909–2006) and Arthur Edward Petersen (1907 – 2004), who worked in the furniture industry. He was born in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother, with a Danish and German descent. Arthur Jr. and Robert, Jr., and three sisters, Anne, Mary Kaye, and Elizabeth, have two brothers, Arthur Jr. and Robert.

In 1972, he graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho. On a football scholarship, he was accepted to Idaho State University. Petersen took an acting course while attending Idaho State University, which changed the course of his life. In 1974, he and his wife, Joanne, left school and followed a drama scholar to Basque country, where he trained as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen was interested in Basque history and gave his daughter the Basque word "Maite Nerea" ("My Beloved"; she was born in Arrasate/Mondragón in 1975. Petersen returned to Idaho with the intention of being an actor. He returned to the Chicago area, living with relatives, rather than wanting to work in an Idaho nonacting job. He became involved in the theater and earned his Actors' Equity card. He appeared with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, of which he has been an ensemble member since 2008, and was a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble, which also included other notable Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine.

Personal life

Maite is Petersen's daughter who was born in 1975. Petersen married Gina Cirone, a longtime girlfriend, in June 2003. Mazrik William (born October 2003) and Indigo August (born August 2009) are his two grandsons. He is a huge Chicago Cubs fan. He related a near-death experience in the 1980s to Playboy, which gave him "assurance" that there is a afterlife.

Petersen and Cirone (via survivor) welcomed fraternal twins (a son and a daughter) on July 5, 2011.

Petersen was admitted by ambulance in August 2021 after being sick on the set of CSI: Vegas. After 12 weeks of shooting, he was suffering from exhaustion and was released shortly after.

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Career

In 1985, Petersen received his first break when he played a Secret Service agent gone rogue to avenge his mentor in William Friedkin's 1985 action film To Live and Die in L.A. In 1986, he played FBI agent Will Graham in the first Hannibal Lecter film, Manhunter. Because his role was so emotionally exhausting, he did everything he could to rid himself of Graham after finishing principal photography. He shaved off his beard, cut his hair, and bleached it blond. He also claims to have done this because, while rehearsing for a play in Chicago, his dialogue was always coming out like Graham's; he dyed his hair so he could look in the mirror and see a different person.

He declined a part in Oliver Stone's Platoon, as it would have kept him in the Philippines, away from his family. Instead, he worked on the 1987 HBO made-for-TV movie Long Gone as a minor league baseball player and manager named Cecil "Stud" Cantrell. Petersen was offered the role of Henry Hill in the film Goodfellas, but turned it down. An exposé about the film in the May 2015 issue of Playboy claims that Petersen turned down the audition altogether. In a 1990 ABC three-part miniseries, The Kennedys of Massachusetts, Petersen played U.S. President John F. Kennedy's father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. The film won an Emmy and a Golden Globe from eight and two nominations, respectively. Also in 1990, Petersen portrayed the infamous Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett in Young Guns II.

In 1993, Petersen appeared in a CBS TV miniseries, Return to Lonesome Dove, as former Ranger Gideon Walker. He played Steven Walker, a father who stops at nothing to break up the relationship between his daughter and her vicious boyfriend in Fear (1996). Petersen played Governor Jack Hathaway, an unscrupulous candidate for vice president following the death of the incumbent, in The Contender in 2000.

He appeared uncredited in the noir thriller Mulholland Falls as a character who finds himself on the violent receiving end of a Los Angeles police squad's tactics. In 1999, he starred in Kiss the Sky as "Jeff." He appeared as part of an all-star cast in a remake of the 1997 film 12 Angry Men (as Juror #12, a.k.a. "the Snob").

From 2000 to 2010, he played Dr. Gil Grissom in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Petersen took a break from CSI in 2006 to appear in a five-week run of the Trinity Repertory Company production of Dublin Carol by Conor McPherson, in Providence, Rhode Island. Petersen renewed his contract with CBS to appear on CSI for the 2008–09 season, reportedly for $600,000 per episode. On July 15, 2008, the Associated Press reported that Petersen was leaving the show as a regular following Season 9's tenth episode in order to pursue more stage-acting opportunities, but that he might return for guest spots. He remained an executive producer of the show. He reprised his role of Gil Grissom in the eleventh-season episode "The Two Mrs. Grissoms" (aired February 3, 2011). He came back in 2015 as a guest in the series finale, "Immortality."

In February 2020, Petersen announced to return for a CSI sequel series along with Jorja Fox, before the series was picked up as CSI: Vegas.

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