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G. W. Bailey

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G. W. Bailey
Bailey as "Captain Harris" in Police Academy
Born (1944-08-27) August 27, 1944 (age 80)[1]
Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1974–present
Spouse
Eleanor Jane Goosby
​
​
(m. 1966; div. 1999)​
Children2

G. W. Bailey (born August 27, 1944)[1] is an American actor. Although he has appeared in many dramatic roles, he may be best remembered for his "crusty" comedic characters such as Staff Sergeant Luther Rizzo in M*A*S*H (TV series 1979–1983); Lieutenant/Captain Thaddeus Harris in the Police Academy films (1984–1994), and Captain Felix Maxwell in Mannequin (1987). He played the role of Detective Lieutenant Louie Provenza on TNT's television crime drama The Closer, and its spinoff series Major Crimes, from 2005 to 2018.

Life and career

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Bailey was born in Port Arthur, Texas, where he went to Thomas Jefferson High School with Janis Joplin and Jimmy Johnson. He started college at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont and transferred to Texas Tech University in Lubbock.[2]

Bailey left college and spent the mid-1960s working at local theater companies before moving to California in the mid-1970s. He broke into television with a small recurring role as a crime scene police officer on the short-lived detective show Harry O. He then landed one-shot episodic roles on television programs of the day such as Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels. His film debut was in A Force of One (1979), an early Chuck Norris film. By the late 1970s, he got his breakout role as the conniving, cigar-chomping goldbricker Sgt. Luther Rizzo in M*A*S*H.[3] He also appeared as Tom Berenger's sidekick in Rustler's Rhapsody (1985).

He returned to college in 1993, and graduated from Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State, in San Marcos, Texas in May 1993, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Theatre. For the 1999–2000 school year, he was the Artist-in-Residence.[citation needed]

In the late 1990s, he starred in three of the seventeen television films and miniseries in the Bible Collection series produced for the TNT television network: Solomon (1997), Jesus (1999), and Paul (2000).

From 2001 to 2019, Bailey served as the executive director of the Sunshine Kids Foundation,[4] which provides trips and activities for hundreds of young cancer patients annually. He first volunteered with the organization after his goddaughter was diagnosed with leukemia.[4]

Filmography (film and TV)

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References

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  1. ^ a b "G.W. Bailey". Museum of the Gulf Coast. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  2. ^ "Tech Theater: Experimental in Nature". La Ventana. 041. Texas Tech University: 412. 1966. hdl:2346/48706. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  3. ^ Murray, Noel (August 26, 2008). "G.W. Bailey". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on July 4, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  4. ^ a b "The Sunshine Kids Foundation staff". Sunshinekids.org. Sunshine Kids Foundation. Archived from the original on October 14, 2017. Retrieved October 5, 2010.
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