David Rasche

David Rasche (born August 7, 1944) is an American actor. Rasche was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was a minister and farmer. Rasche started in theatre, but also has appeared on numerous movies and television series. He was at one time a member of Chicago's Second City improv group. Rasche has a scholarly background (graduate degree from the University of Chicago) and also worked as a teacher and writer, including several years at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, before going into show business full-time. After Second City, he starred in the Organic Theater's 1974 production of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which established the playwright's characteristic blend of earthy, sometimes brutal dialogue. He later played to critical acclaim in the Broadway production of Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, and an Off-Broadway revival of Mamet's Edmond. He was Petruchio to Frances Conroy's Kate in a production of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew directed by Zoe Caldwell at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut in the mid-1980s. In 1974, he fronted $1,000 to help start Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. He began appearing on TV and films in 1977, making his film debut in 1978 in An Unmarried Woman, directed by Paul Mazursky.