William Devane Has Played the President Across Four Different Franchises

TLDR: William Devane’s own father was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s real chauffeur, a strange bit of foreshadowing for an actor who’d go on to play American presidents and politicians more times than almost anyone else in Hollywood. Knots Landing was just one entry in a career that includes an Emmy-nominated turn as JFK and a role Jack Nicholson later won an Oscar for.

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William Joseph Devane was born September 5, 1939, in Albany, New York, the son of Joseph Devane, who had served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s chauffeur while Roosevelt was Governor of New York.

He trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and built real theater credentials early, appearing in fifteen plays with the New York Shakespeare Festival and playing Robert F. Kennedy in the 1966 off-Broadway spoof MacBird.

He Originated a Role Jack Nicholson Later Won an Oscar For

In 1971, Devane starred as Randle McMurphy in the first stage revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, alongside a young Danny DeVito playing Martini, a role DeVito would later reprise in the acclaimed film version starring Jack Nicholson.

Around the same period, Robert Altman and Warren Beatty saw Devane performing with the Shakespeare Festival and personally cast him in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, launching a friendship between Devane and Beatty that’s lasted since the mid-1960s.

He Became One of Hollywood’s Go-To Kennedys

Devane’s real breakthrough came playing President John F. Kennedy in the 1974 television docudrama The Missiles of October, dramatizing the Cuban Missile Crisis, a performance that earned him an Emmy nomination and delivered him to leading man status.

Martin Sheen, who would later play Kennedy himself in a different production, played Robert Kennedy alongside him in that same film.

He Joined Knots Landing to Play a Character Who Betrayed His Best Friend Immediately

Devane joined Knots Landing during its fifth season as Greg Sumner, an aspiring state senator who revealed his true nature almost immediately by blackballing his own best friend, Mack MacKenzie, in a corrupt land deal.

He stayed with the role for a decade, later engaging in a storyline romantically partnering Sumner with Mack’s much younger illegitimate daughter, Paige Matheson, played by Nicollette Sheridan, a plot both actors reportedly leaned into with dark comic timing.

For his ten years on the show, Devane won three Soap Opera Digest Awards and earned a Golden Globe nomination. He’s said fans still recognize him constantly by the character’s name decades later: “Restaurants, airports, ‘Hey Greg Sumner!’ someone will call out and they’ll come up and hug me.”

He’s Played the President More Times Than Almost Anyone in Hollywood

Beyond Kennedy, Devane has played the President of the United States across a genuinely remarkable number of separate franchises: Stargate SG-1, its follow-up film Stargate: Continuum, The Dark Knight Rises, and the Fox series 24 and its revival 24: Live Another Day, where he played Secretary of Defense James Heller.

He also played the Secretary of State on The West Wing in 2004, giving him a real, sustained career playing figures of presidential and cabinet-level authority across decades of American television and film.

He Directed Episodes Too, and Married Once, for Sixty Years

Like castmates Michele Lee and Joan Van Ark, Devane also stepped behind the camera, directing episodes of Knots Landing between 1989 and 1992. He married Eugenie McCabe in 1962, a marriage that lasted sixty years until her death in 2022, and the couple had two children together.

You can read more about the rest of the cast in our full guide to Knots Landing.

William Devane, Frequently Asked Questions