Bob Gunton

Bob Gunton

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Birth name: Robert Patrick Gunton Jr.
Date of birth: 15 November 1945
Place of birth: Santa Monica, California, USA
Nickname: Bob
Height: 6′ 1″ (1.85 m)
Spouse: Carey (Pitts) Gunton (26 August 2006 – present), Annie McGreevey (6 July 1980 – 31 July 2006) (divorced) 1 child

Famous Quote: “Because, you know what your hours are going to be and they also have periods of time off within the season, that you just don’t get on an hour show. There’s a lot of lying and these are people who are incredibly flawed, and not in very sort of empathetic ways, either. Some of the things they do are pretty awful and some of the things they do to each other are pretty awful.”

Contact Address and Autograph: Addresses and fan mail information

Bob Gunton
Abrams Artists Agency N.Y.
275 Seventh Avenue. 26th Floor
New York, NY 10001, USA 

Biography:  Bob Gunton (born November 15, 1945) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Warden Norton in the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption. Like all good character actors, Bob Gunton is probably known more by his face than his name his craggy, often impassive visage has essayed a score of tough, taciturn, often morally questionable men, the best known of which was the cold-hearted warden in “The Shawshank Redemption.” But the California native has given life to a wide variety of roles during his four decades as an actor, including several award-winning musical performances on Broadway and in several comedies, including “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” on the big screen and the cult series “Greg the Bunny” (2002) on the small screen.

California-born actor Robert Gunton has been essaying film character roles since 1980. Among his film credits are Rollover (1981), Matewan (1987), Glory (1988) and Cookie (1989). Many observers feel that Gunton was at his performing peak in the role of a wildly neurotic streetcorner evangelist in the little-seen satire Static (1985). A seasoned improv performer, Robert Gunton was one of the regulars (along with such future notables as Mark-Linn Baker and Joe Mantegna on the Manhattan-based TV series Comedy Zone (1984). 

Gunton was born Robert Patrick Gunton, Jr. in Santa Monica, California, the son of Rose Marie (née Banouetz) and Robert Patrick Gunton, Sr., a labor union executive. He attended St. Peter’s College, a Paulist seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of California, and served in the US army.

Gunton appeared on Broadway as Juan Peron opposite Patti LuPone in the original cast of Evita and in a 1989 revival of Sweeney Todd and received Tony Award nominations for both. Additional Broadway credits include Working, King of Hearts, “The Music Man”, and Big River. In 1994, Gunton caught audiences’ attention as Warden Norton in Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption,” an adaptation of a Stephen King novella that developed a sizable following in the decade after its release. 

Gunton’s roles grew somewhat meatier after “Shawshank,” though his characters remained essentially the same he played Franklin D. Roosevelt in the TV movie “Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long” (1995), Richard Nixon in the comic revisionist TV movie “Elvis Meets Nixon” (1997) and prosecuting attorney Finley Largent in Clint Eastwood’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (1997). Gunton also appeared in the feature films “The Perfect Storm” (1999), John Woo’s “Broken Arrow” (1996), and perhaps his most hissable antagonist in the dreary 1998 Robin Williams melodrama, “Patch Adams.”

Since 2000, Gunton has logged considerable hours on episodic television and made-for-TV features, including recurring roles on “Nip/Tuck,” “Judging Amy,” and “Desperate Housewives,” as well as a turn as Woodrow Wilson in the HBO production “Iron-Jawed Angels” (2004). Gunton portrayed President Richard Nixon in a recreation of the Watergate tapes incident for Nightline. Gunton portrayed United States Secretary of Defense Ethan Kanin in the sixth season of 24 and will reprise his role, but now as Chief of Staff to the new President, in the seventh season of the show as a series regular.

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