Peter Gallagher

He was born in New York City. His mother, Mary Ann (née O'Shea), was a bacteriologist, and his father, Thomas Francis Gallagher, Jr., was an advertising executive. Gallagher is the youngest of their three children. He is of Irish Catholic background and was raised in Armonk, New York. Gallagher graduated from Tufts University, where he was active in theater, appearing in such shows as Stephen Sondheim's Company and singing with the all-male a cappella group the Beelzebubs. He studied acting at the William Esper Studio. After appearing in the touring company of Grease and subsequently in the Broadway production, he went on to rack up numerous stage credits, including the American premiere of Another Country (1982), the short-lived musical A Doll's Life (also 1982) and a small role as Glenn Close's lover in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (1984). He won praise and a Tony nomination as Edmund Tyrone (alongside Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey) in Jonathan Miller's controversial production of Long Day's Journey into Night, presented in 1987 on Broadway, London's West End and cable TV. In 1992, he triumphed as Sky Masterson in the successful revival of Guys and Dolls. More recently, he made a memorable Joey opposite Patti LuPone in the four-day run of City Center Encores' Pal Joey in 1995. He and LuPone also reteamed for a one-night only benefit staging of Annie Get Your Gun (1998). From February 13 through July 5, 2015, Gallagher starred on Broadway in On the Twentieth Century.


He made his feature film debut in the Taylor Hackford film The Idolmaker (1980), he followed with Randal Kleiser's Summer Lovers (1982) with Daryl Hannah and Neil Jordan's High Spirits (1988) with Daryl Hannah (again), Liam Neeson and Peter O'Toole. His breakout role was in Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). He starred with Keanu Reeves, Barbara Hershey and Peter Falk in Tune in Tomorrow (1990). Gallagher played a potential career threat to Tim Robbins's studio executive in The Player (1992). He was in Tim Robbin's political satire Bob Roberts (1992), was in the large ensemble for Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), in the medical thriller Malice (1993) with Alec Baldwin and Nicole Kidman, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) directed by the Coen Brothers, was part of Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) with Jennifer Jason Leigh, starred with Jamie Lee Curtis in the horror thriller Mother's Boys (1994), reteamed with Steven Soderbergh for The Underneath (1995), was the comatose fiancé of Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping (1995), played Bill Murray's brother in The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997), was in the horror remake House on Haunted Hill (1999) with Geoffrey Rush, played a real estate salesman having an affair with Annette Bening in American Beauty (1999), the teen dance film Center Stage (2000), played a media executive in Mr. Deeds (2002), shared the stage with Cher in Burlesque (2010), starred with Sally Field in Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015), part of A Bad Moms Christmas (2019) and was the father of the bride in Palm Springs (2020).


On TV He is best known for starring as Sandy Cohen in the drama series The O.C. from 2003 to 2007, recurring roles such as Deputy Chief William Dodds on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Stacey Koons on the Showtime comedy-drama Californication, and Nick on the Netflix series Grace & Frankie. He also played CIA Director of Clandestine Services (DCS) Arthur Campbell on Covert Affairs. In 2020 Gallagher played Mitch Clarke, who had Progressive supranuclear palsy, on Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. Gallagher released an album titled 7 Days in Memphis in 2005, on the Sony BMG label. This includes a studio recording of his performance of "Don't Give Up On Me" (originally by Solomon Burke), which was featured in an episode of The O.C. He also has a video for his single "Still I Long For Your Kiss", in which he starred with his TV-wife Kelly Rowan. He has been in the TV movies The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988), I'll Be Home for Christmas (1988), Titanic (1996) and A Brave New World (1998) and was in the miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988) with Jack Lemmon and An Inconvenient Woman (1991) with Jason Robards. He has had guest roles on such series as Homicide: Life on the Street, Robot Chicken, Rescue Me, How I Met Your Mother, The Good Wife, New Girl, Murphy Brown, Family Guy, The Conners and Mr. Mayor. In 2021, Gallagher took part in the television series Grey's Anatomy as Dr. David Hamilton. In 2022 he took a role in the Hulu sitcom Reboot playing a character similar to his role in The Player. Gallagher is married to Paula Harwood and has two children, James and Kathryn. He was quoted as saying "If I have a choice between a nice, bland hero or a really interesting, detestable character, I'd rather do the detestable one. Good guys can be pretty boring. I love playing characters who celebrate the power and joy and beauty of greed. As the bad guy, you have less moral and behavioral restrictions. There's no burden of being liked. It's real freedom for the actor."