Steven Bradford Culp (born December 3, 1955) is an American actor.
Biography
Early life
Culp was born in
La Jolla,
California to a naval officer father. During his childhood, his parents divorced and his mother,
Ohio-born Mary Ann "Anjo" Joseph,
[Mary J. Grabinsky] re-married to John Raymond Grabinsky. Culp attended
First Colonial High School in Virginia. He graduated from the
College of William and Mary in 1978 with a major in English literature
[Steven Culp Bio - Steven Culp Biography - Steven Culp Stories] and also studied at the
University of Exeter in England.
Career
Steven can be seen in one of his earliest roles as Robert Campbell in
Jason Goes to Hell (1993). He plays a reporter looking into the Jason murders. Culp is known for his recurring roles as
CIA Agent
Clayton Webb on
JAG (1997–2004) and
Major Hayes on
Star Trek: Enterprise (2003–2004). He had the unusual misfortune to have both of those characters killed off in the same week, in the shows' season finales (though Webb turned up very much alive in the subsequent season premiere of JAG). During the year 2004, Steven became the first actor to appear as a recurring character in four television series simultaneously:
The West Wing,
Star Trek: Enterprise,
JAG and
ER.
Culp has played
Robert F. Kennedy twice; in the film
Thirteen Days (2000) and previously in the TV movie
Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996). He also played Commander Martin Madden in
Star Trek Nemesis (2002), a character written to replace
William Riker as
Enterprise first officer. However due to the film running too long, Culp's scenes (along with other scenes) were cut from the final film, so Madden can now only be seen in the
Nemesis DVD deleted scenes. Culp also played the leading role of the photographer Richard Stewart in the English As A Second Language educational video series
Family Album, U.S.A..
Other performances include his role as
antagonist Peter Drummond in the campy
television movie How to Make a Monster in which nerdy computer game programmers accidentally give life to a deadly AI. Members of the software company take turns attempting to beat the game in order save their own lives. He played
Rex Van de Kamp, husband of perfectionist
Bree Hodge, played by
Marcia Cross, on the TV show
Desperate Housewives for one season. Once again, his character was killed off at the end of the season. He also played Republican
Speaker of the House of Representatives Jeff Haffley on the TV show
The West Wing. Culp also starred in a few episodes of
24 during the second season as secret service agent
Ted Simmons
Steven won the
Celebrity Poker Showdown 7th Season Championship game. Steven was seen on the
ABC show '
Traveler' as Special Agent in Charge Fred Chambers and on
NCIS as Navy Commander William Skinner. He also guest-starred in the
Stargate Atlantis episode '
Miller's Crossing' and
Medium in the episode "Do You Hear What I Hear".
Once again he was killed, this time in the pilot episode of the
The Mentalist.
Personal life
On the morning of January 1, 2006, his half sister, Kathryn Harvey, along with her
husband and two children, were
murdered in
Richmond,
Virginia.
[Desperate Housewives - Rocker's Murdered Wife Is Desperate Housewives Star's Sister] The accused killer, Ricky Javon Gray, has been convicted and was sentenced to receive the
death penalty.
[www.wtopnews.com/?nid=600&sid=667342]
Culp is not related to actor
Robert Culp.