Gregory Itzin

1948–2022 · American character actor of film and television

Biography

Gregory Itzin (April 20, 1948 – July 8, 2022) was an American character actor in film and television, best known for playing U.S. President Charles Logan in the action thriller 24. Trained for the stage, he spent much of his career moving between theatre productions across the country and supporting roles on screen, a working actor whose steady presence defined a long run of American television.

Born in Washington, D.C., he grew up partly in Burlington, Wisconsin, where his father served as mayor. He trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and performed on many stages around the country. In Los Angeles he was a member of the Antaeus Theatre Company and the Matrix Theatre Company. He received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for The Kentucky Cycle, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and won an L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for his Earl of Kent in King Lear in 2010.

His television work began with guest spots in the late 1970s and 1980s and grew into recurring roles across very different shows, from Friends to several Star Trek series, where he played multiple characters. On film he often took small but memorable parts, such as a hotel clerk in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or a prison warden in Law Abiding Citizen. His performance as President Logan in 24 earned him an Emmy nomination. Later he joined The Mentalist as the head of the unit, a serious but loyal figure, before leaving at the end of the second season.

His final film role was in the British documentary The Other Fellow (2022). He died in London at the age of 74 from complications following emergency surgery. He is remembered as a reliable supporting performer who appeared in many of the series and films that shaped American screen drama of his era.

Key films

Lincoln (2012): a supporting role in Spielberg's political drama about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Adaptation (2002): a supporting part in the comedy by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998): a hotel clerk in Terry Gilliam's adaptation of the Hunter S. Thompson novel.
Airplane! (1980): a religious zealot in the Zucker brothers' comedy.
Law Abiding Citizen (2009): a prison warden in the revenge thriller starring Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx.