Adam Arkin was born on August 19, 1956. He is an American actor and director. He is most famous for playing the character Aaron Shutt on the television show Chicago Hope. He has been nominated for many awards, including a Tony Award for Best Actor in 1991 for his role in I Hate Hamlet. He also received three primetime Emmy nominations, four SAG Awards for his work on Chicago Hope, and a DGA Award for directing My Louisiana Sky. In 2002, he won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special for My Louisiana Sky. He played the character Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck on the show Monk, along with two other actors. From 2007 to 2009, he appeared in the television series Life. Beginning in 1990, he had a recurring role on Northern Exposure as a character named Adam, who was angry and paranoid. This role earned him an Emmy nomination. In 2009, he played the character Ethan Zobelle, a leader of a white separatist gang, in Sons of Anarchy, and Principal Ed Gibb in 8 Simple Rules (2003–2005). His brother, Matthew, and his father, Alan Arkin, are also actors.
Early life
Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Alan Arkin, an actor, director, and writer, and his first wife, Jeremy Yaffe. He performed with his parents in a children's music group called the Baby Sitters. Other members included Lee Hays and Doris Willens. Arkin graduated from Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York. Arkin is Jewish.
Career
In 1975, Arkin appeared in an episode of the award-winning television show Happy Days (season 2, episode 35) and an episode of Barney Miller ("Grand Hotel"). In 1977, he played the main character, Lenny Markowitz, in the series Busting Loose. Since then, he has appeared in many television shows, including A Year in the Life (1988); The Twilight Zone (1986); Northern Exposure (CBS, 1990–1995), where he portrayed a changeable, barefoot chef named Adam; and Chicago Hope (CBS, 1994–2000). He also appeared in two episodes of Law & Order: as a jewelry store owner named George Costas in "Self Defense" (Season 3, 1992) and as a district attorney named Charles Graham in "Red Ball" (Season 16, 2005). Other shows include Picket Fences (Season 2, Episode 13); Frasier (as an obsessive fan of Frasier, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series); Boston Legal; Baby Bob; Monk; and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (2002). In 2007, he played Ted Earley in the NBC drama Life. He portrayed a white separatist leader named Ethan Zobelle in the second season of Sons of Anarchy. In April 2008, he appeared in the web series Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show. In 2011, he was in an episode of The Closer ("To Serve with Love") and played mob boss Theo Tonin on Justified and an FBI agent on The Chicago Code.
Arkin has appeared in films such as Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) and Hitch (2005). He also played a divorce lawyer in A Serious Man (2009), directed by Ethan and Joel Coen.
He has done voice acting, including a minor role as Fixer in the radio dramatization of Star Wars. For PBS, he voiced Meriwether Lewis in Ken Burns’s The Voyage of the Corps of Discovery (1997). He also provided voices for the Emmy-winning series The National Parks: America's Best Idea.
Arkin has performed in Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theater productions, including Brooklyn Boy by Donald Margulies in its South Coast Repertory world premiere and the Broadway version.
He has directed episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal, The Riches, Dirt, Ally McBeal, Sons of Anarchy, The Blacklist, Justified, and Masters of Sex. He won an Emmy for directing the Showtime film My Louisiana Sky. He also directed three episodes of the 2013 Cold War drama The Americans, the final episode of the second season of Masters of Sex (2014), and the final two episodes of the second season of Fargo (2015), in which he also had a small role.
Arkin is a co-executive producer of the television series Get Shorty.
Personal life
He has a daughter named Molly from his first marriage to Linda. He was married to Phyllis Anne Lyons from 1999 to 2013. They had one son together. Phyllis asked for a divorce in August 2013. He married Michelle Dunker in 2017.