John Shea

John Victor Shea III (born April 14, 1949) is an American actor and director.

Early Life
Shea was born in North Conway, New Hampshire and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts in a family of five. His parents were Elizabeth Mary and Dr. John Victor Shea, Jr., who served in the US Army in World War 2, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and was a teacher, coach and later assistant Superintendent of Schools. Shea attended Catholic schools graduating from Cathedral High School where he captained the varsity debate team and played varsity football and track. Shea received his early theatre training at Bates College under Lavinia Schaffer and Bill Beard. He also performed on the varsity debating and football teams and co-edited the college lierary magazine, Puffed Wheat, before graduating with a BA in 1970. He studied acting and directing at the Yale School of Drama under Dean Robert Brustein, gaining an MFA in Directing in 1973. During his time at the School of Drama, he also performed at the Yale Repertory Theatre, in the Yale cabaret with schoolmates Joe Grifasi and Meryl Streep, and studied film with Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet at the Film School.

Career
After a directing apprenticeship at both the Chelsea Theatre (under Robet Kalfin) and the Public Theatre (with Joseph Papp) he made his Broadway debut at the age of twenty six in Kalfin's production of Issac B. Singer's Yentl opposite Tovah Feldshuh, for which he received the Theatre World Award.

After guest starring roles in such TV series' as Eight is Enough and Man from Atlantis, Shea made his television debut playing Joseph in The Nativity opposite Madeleine Stowe, and his feature film debut in Matthew Chapman's English film noir Hussy, opposite Helen Mirren. His American film debut was in Costa-Gavras' Academy Award winning Missing with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. The film also won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and helped launch Shea's international acting career.

Since then he has starred in many films, including Windy City (opposite Kate Capshaw for which he won a Best Actor award at the Montreal Film Festival in 1984), Stealing Home, Lune de Miel, Unsettled Land with Kelly McGillis, A New Life with Alan Alda and Ann- Margaret, The Impossible Spy with Eli Wallach, Freejack and Honey, I Blew up the Kid. Shea made his debut into Indian cinema with the 2009 Tamil mystery drama film Achchamundu! Achchamundu!, becoming the first American actor to work in a Tamil film.

Shea has also starred in a number of independent films, including The Adventures of Sebastian Cole and The Insurgents and An Invisible Sign and The Trouble With the Truth with Lea Thompson. In addition, he co-wrote and directed the independent film Southie starring Amanda Peet, Donnie Wahlberg, Rose McGowan, Anne Meara, Will Arnet, Jimmy Cummings and Lawrence Tierney. Southie won the Seattle International Film Festival award for Best Film, represented the United States at the Montreal International Festival, and was distributed by Lions Gate Films. He has served on the Board of Advisors of the Nantucket Film Festival since its inception, a festival dedicated to the art of screenwriting.

Since his Broadway debut in Yentl Shea has continued to work in Off-Broadwat and Broadway theatre productions, starring in Arthur Kopit's End of the World, Paula Vodel's How I Learned to Drive, Anne Meara's Down the Garden Paths, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day Journey Into Night for which he was nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award, A.R. Gurney's The Dining Room, Peter Parnell's The Sorrows of Stephen, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Steven Poliakoff's American Days, Romeo and Juliet, Phillip Barry's The Animal Kingdon with Sigourney Weaver, Nancy Hasty's The Director and Isral Horowitz's The Secret of Madame Bonnard's Bath in 2007. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket where he has starred in David Harrower's play Blackbird and revival of The Director, Shea served as apprenticeship at this same theatre while a college student under the direction of an early mentor, Joseph 'Mac' Dixon.

He made his Carnegie Hall debut playing The Soldier in Tom O'Horgan's production of Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat. In 1986 he made his London West End debut starring in Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart at the Albery Theatre.

She is also a regular reader on Selected Shorts for Symphony Space, broadcast nationwide on Public Radio International. His sensitive reading of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory won AudioFile Magazine's Earphones Award in 1999, as part of the anthology Selected Shorts: Classic Tales, Vol. XII. For his work reading Ted Bell's international thriller Assassin, Shea received an Audie Award nomination as Best Male Narrater. He has also performed Bell's other novels, Hawke, Spy, Pirate, Czar and Nick of Time, among other audio books.

Besides his more high profile starring roles in Lois & Clark and Mutant X, Shea's diverse television work included guest appearances on TV shows Sex and the City, Law & Order, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent as well as being a recurring character on Gossip Girl called Harold Waldorf.

Among other television films he has been featured in Family Reunion with Bette Davis, Small Sacrifices opposite Farrah Fawcett which won a Peabody Award, Kenny with Martin Sheen, in which he co-starred as Robert F. Kennedy, which won a BAFTA Award, A Will of Their Own with Lea Thompson, Hitler's S.S opposite Bill Night, Do You Know the Muffin Man? with Pam Dawber, Coast to Coast with Lenny Henry and Pete Postlethwaite for the BBC and an adaptation of A.R Gurney's play The Dining Room for Great Performances. Shea received a Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role in the mini series Baby M opposite JoBeth Williams.

Personal Life
John has been married twice. He and his first wife, the fine arts photographer Laura Pettibone, had one child together, Jake. He and his current wife, the artist Melissa MacLeod, a co-founder of the cooperative (X) Gallery on Nantucket, have two children, Miranda and Caiden.