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Anthony Heald

Anthony Heald has built a career around characters who command a room, often with an intelligence that can tilt toward severity, suspicion or menace. Born on August 25, 1944, in New Rochelle, the American actor has worked across stage, film and television, bringing theatrical precision to even his smaller screen roles. Heald’s stage career includes extensive work on Broadway and two Tony Award nominations. One came for his performance as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in the 1988 production of Anything Goes. His theatre credits also include Terrence McNally’s The Lisbon Traviata and Lips Together, Teeth Apart, as well as Inherit the Wind. For movie audiences, Heald is closely associated with Dr. Frederick Chilton, Hannibal Lecter’s jailer in The Silence of the Lambs. He returned to the role in Red Dragon, once again making Chilton’s officious confidence part of the tension around Lecter. Heald also appeared in three adaptations of John Grisham bestsellers, playing a lawyer in The Pelican Brief, an FBI agent in The Client and a psychiatrist in A Time to Kill. His other film roles include George Lazan in Postcards from the Edge, a government agent posing as an acting student in Outrageous Fortune, and an FBI interrogator in X-Men: The Last Stand. Television gave Heald room to explore authority figures over longer stretches. He played vice principal Scott Guber on Boston Public from 2000 to 2004 and had a recurring role as Judge Cooper on The Practice and Boston Legal. His television appearances also include Miami Vice, Law & Order, The X-Files, Cheers and its spin-off Frasier. Beyond the screen and stage, Heald has recorded a wide range of audiobooks, from Moby-Dick and Where the Red Fern Grows to Jurassic Park, The Pelican Brief and numerous Star Wars titles. It is another fitting outlet for a performer whose voice can carry wit, control and unease in equal measure.