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Brian McNamara

Brian McNamara has built a wide-ranging screen career by moving easily between film, television drama, sitcoms and science fiction. Born on November 21, 1960, in Long Island, the American actor became a familiar presence through roles that often made the most of his steady, grounded delivery. One of McNamara’s earliest notable television appearances came in the 1987 Family Ties episode “A, My Name Is Alex.” He played Greg, a friend of Alex Keaton whose death in a car accident drives the story; the episode’s writer received an Emmy Award. McNamara soon took on the role of Todd Young in Caddyshack II and starred in the Disney science-fiction television movie Earth Star Voyager. In 1989, he had a lead role in NBC’s short-lived sitcom The Nutt House. His feature-film work includes Short Circuit, Arachnophobia and a starring role in The Legend of Tillamook’s Gold. On television, McNamara led the 2000 series Manhattan, AZ and appeared in the television movie A Diva’s Christmas Carol. His most sustained role came on Army Wives, where he starred from 2007 to 2013 as General Holden, husband of Claudia-Joy Holden. McNamara’s television credits show just how readily he could fit into different kinds of series. He guest-starred on St. Elsewhere, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, JAG, Star Trek: Voyager, Mad About You, Matlock, Diagnosis: Murder, Ellen, Murder, She Wrote, Murphy Brown, Monk, The O.C. and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, among others. Later appearances included Ghost Whisperer, NCIS: Los Angeles and CSI: Cyber. He also entered the interactive-movie territory of the 1995 full-motion video game Silent Steel. That range—not one fixed screen persona—defines McNamara’s career. Whether carrying a series, supporting a feature or stepping into a single television episode, he has worked across a notably broad stretch of American screen entertainment.