Ray Wise (born 29 August 1947) is an American actor, known for his roles in Twin Peaks as Leland Palmer, and as Leon Nash, right-hand henchmen to villain Clarence Boddicker in the sci-fi classic Robocop.
Wise was born in Akron, Ohio and attended Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Wise resides in Southern California. He has two children, Gannon and Kyna.[citation needed]
In the late sixties and seventies, Wise played attorney Jamie Rollins on the soap opera, Love of Life. In addition to Twin Peaks, Wise has played several other roles in science fiction. He made an appearance as Liko in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Who Watches the Watchers", and later played Arturis in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Hope and Fear". He is also known for portraying Michael Dugan, President of the United States in the computer real-time strategy games Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and its expansion Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge. Consequently, Ray Wise has a cult following among the science fiction community.
In recent years, Wise has appeared on a number of political-themed television series and films. He briefly appeared on The West Wing as California governor Gabriel "Gabe" Tillman, and played Vice President Hal Gardner on the Emmy-winning FOX series 24 in 2006. In August of 2006, Wise made a guest appearance in the TV series Bones (FOX) as the primary suspect of the first episode of the second season (The Titan on the Tracks). On the February 6th episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Wise guest starred as the head of a company testing pesticides on little children.
Wise played 1950s CBS News news anchor Don Hollenbeck in Good Night, and Good Luck.
