Leon Russom

Russom was in the original cast of the 1969 Off-Broadway show Oh! Calcutta!.^[1] His first television acting work was on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light in the late 1960s. He subsequently appeared in another CBS soap opera Love is a Many Splendored Thing as Joe Taylor from 1972 to 1973. Russom was the second actor to play the role of Willis Frame on the NBC soap Another World, a role that he kept for several years. His early film career included The Trial of the Catonsville Nine as David Durst and Stephen King's Silver Bullet. He also appeared on the TV show Mission: Impossible as Sam Evans.

Russom's later work included many appearances in dramas, mainly legal or crime. He appeared in many TV shows in the 1990s and the early 2000s, including L.A. Law, Bones, Cold Case, Law & Order, JAG, NYPD Blue, John Doe, The X-Files, Dark Skies, Seinfeld and other shows. He played the police chief of Malibu in the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski (1998). He appeared in Prison Break as General Jonathan Krantz, head of The Company.

Russom is also a stage actor, and in 2012, he was nominated for an LA Weekly Theater Award^[2] for his portrayal of Hamm in Samuel Beckett's Endgame at Los Angeles' Sacred Fools Theater Company,^[3] where he served as a co-artistic director for the company's sixteenth season, alongside fellow company members French Stewart and Alyssa Preston.^[4] In 2013, he appeared as the Earl of Gloucester in King Lear with The Porters of Hellsgate, alongside Larry Cedar as King Lear.^[5] In 2018, he appeared in John Krasinski's horror film, A Quiet Place.^[6]