Sam Waterston

The son of a Mayflower descendent, Sam Waterston was born in Cambridge, Mass., on Nov. 15, 1940, attending Yale University, the Sorbonne and the American Actors Workshop before taking on television and movie roles.

His big break came with a 1973 television adaptation of Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie" and the film version of The Great Gatsby (1974) with Mia Farrow. That pairing led to a subsequent string of Woody Allen films -- Interiors (1978), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) -- and an Oscar nomination for The Killing Fields (1984).

Despite his impressive film résumé, Waterston is perhaps best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayal of District Attorney Jack McCoy on the long-running detective drama "Law & Order." He continues to perform in both live theater and film, donning a beard more than once to play Abraham Lincoln.

Filmography