Skipp Sudduth

Skipp Sudduth
File:Skipp.jpg Skipp Sudduth in 2005
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Died	Skipp Sudduth]]

Robert Lee Sudduth IV (born August 23 1956), generally known by his stage name Skipp Sudduth, is an American theater, film, and TV actor. Sudduth is perhaps best known for his role in the movie Ronin and his lead in the TV drama Third Watch.

Biography

Personal life

Born in Wareham, Massachusetts, the son of an engineer and a nurse, Sudduth attended George Washington High School in Danville, Virginia, graduating in 1976.  Sudduth earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Hampden-Sydney College in 1979. He worked for a year as Director of Alumni Relations at his Alma Mater, Hampden-Sydney, in the administration of the college's dynamic new president (at that time, 1979), Josiah Bunting III, author of The Lionheads and future commandant of Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. 

Sudduth then worked for a year as apprentice to the winemaker with poet and vintner, Tom O'Grady at Rose Bower Vineyard and Winery. At that time, Rose Bower was only the seventh Estate Vineyard to be licensed in Virginia since the time of Thomas Jefferson. During this period, Sudduth was acting in community and campus theater and writing original comedy and directing and producing the annual comedy review, "Parting Shots", at H-SC.

The following year, he returned to school to follow his growing love of the theater entering the acting program in the Department of Drama at The University of Virginia. At UVA he met and worked with his first and most dynamic acting teacher, Spencer Golub, who would go on to head the Drama Department at Brown University. Golub's emphasis on physically liberating the imagination through extensive guided improvisation became the foundation for Sudduth's approach to acting. Sudduth acted extensively during his time at UVA playing leading roles in Chekov's, The Cherry Orchard, Sam Shepard's,  "Curse of the Starving Class (opposite Nip/Tuck's, Dylan Walsh),  and Peter Shaffer's, Equus, which featured the first full male and female nudity ever allowed on stage in a production at The University. Sudduth received his Masters of Fine Arts degree in acting from UVA in 1985. Then he set his sights on the greatest  actor's city in the United States, Chicago, Illinois.

Career

Sudduth moved to Chicago after aspiring to work with the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theater Company. During his four and a half years in Chicago, Sudduth played in many stage productions including Samuel Beckett's"Waiting for Godot", Emily Mann's "Execution of Justice", and "Nebraska" (by Academy Award nominated screen writer, John Logan "The Aviator"). He has appeared in productions of The Grapes of Wrath, in stage adaptations of On the Waterfront and A Clockwork Orange, and acted in the 1999 Broadway production of The Iceman Cometh (alongside Kevin Spacey) and the 2003 debut performance of Woody Allen's play Riverside Drive (playing with Paul Reiser). He also starred in Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center (with Helen Hunt).

Sudduth's movie career has seen him play numerous small parts in 54 (1998), A Cool, Dry Place (1998), and Spike Lee's Clockers (1995), as well larger roles with Robert De Niro in Ronin (1998) and Flawless (1999). Sudduth, who is a keen amateur racing/stunt driver, performed nearly all of the driving his character does in Ronin.

Skipp Sudduth had a recurring role in the TV soap opera One Life to Live, but is better known for his portrayal of NYPD officer John "Sully" Sullivan in the NBC drama Third Watch. Sudduth appeared in all six seasons of the show and his character is one of the leading ensemble of eight around whom the underlying story arc revolves. He earned his Directors Guild of America card directing the episode "Collateral Damage Part II" in season 4. Sudduth has also made guest appearances in Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, Oz, Trinity, Cosby, and Mad About You.

The multi-talented Sudduth is also a singer-songwriter; his acoustic-rock band Minus Ted has released three albums: Hope and Damage (1994), Really Really (1999) and Hope and Damage Revisited (2005). The last two are available on iTunes. He was a member of New York's Rumble in the Redroom comedy troupe (1996-99) and has recorded several notable audio books including one short story in the acclaimed Stephen King collection, Just After Sunset and the new Ted Kennedy biography, Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, both for Simon and Schuster.

In 2008, Sudduth created the role of Captain George Brackett in the Tony Award winning (7) revival of Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific at Lincoln Center Theater.

Sudduth finished the year appearing in "Prayer for My Enemy", the New York premiere of a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Lucas. The play was the second time Sudduth worked with Tony Award winning director, Bartlett Sher who also directed South Pacific. The production ran at the esteemed Off-Broadway theater Playwrights Horizons from November 14th to December 21st and featured Tony Winners Victoria Clark and Michele Pawk and Tony nominee Jonathan Groff. In the play, Sudduth played a recovering alcoholic coping with his son's return from the Iraq War.

Sudduth officially began his career as a director during his years in the cast of Third Watch directing one episode each of the last three years of the series. Since Third Watch wrapped in spring 2005, Sudduth has directed episodes of ER (2), Criminal Minds and Women's Murder Club. He is currently at work developing projects for film, television, and theater.

External links

• Biography Club biography of Skipp Sudduth
• Third Watch cast biography
• Playwrights Horizons