Terrance "Terry" O'Quinn (born July 15, 1952) is an Emmy Award-winning American actor. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year, since then O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and tv movies such as All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet, Places in the Heart and Between Two Women. O'Quinn has had guest roles on tv shows such as Miami Vice, The Twilight Zone, Tales of the Unexpected and Remington Steele.
O'Quinn became famous for playing the titular role of The Stepfather and The Stepfather II, in 1996 O'Quinn was cast as Peter Watts in Millennium which ran for three seasons (1996-1999). In recent years, O'Quinn has been portraying John Locke on the popular ABC TV series Lost, for which he won an Emmy Award in 2007 and had previously been nominated for in 2005.
Terry O'Quinn was born as Terrance Quinn at War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and grew up in nearby Newberry, Michigan, one of 11 siblings. He attended Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. He changed his surname from Quinn to O'Quinn as another registered actor already had the name Terrance Quinn.
O'Quinn began acting in the 1970s during his time at Central Michigan University. He not only was an outstanding actor but also playwright/director. He wrote and directed the musical Orchestrina. This musical featured five main characters: The Man (played by Jeff Daniels of Dumb & Dumber), The Boy (Harold Downs), The Woman (Ann O'Donnell), The Girl (Debbie Penwarden), and The Drunk (James Hilliker), plus a female and a male chorus (including Gary E. Mitchell, an actor now in Grand Rapids, Michigan). Starting in 1980, O'Quinn has appeared in various films such as Silver Bullet, Tombstone, Heaven's Gate, The Rocketeer and Young Guns.
His early television roles include guest appearances on Miami Vice (episode "Give a Little, Take a Little"), Earth 2, Moonlighting, Star Trek: The Next Generation (episode "The Pegasus"), The New Twilight Zone (episode "Chameleon"), Homicide: Life on the Street (episode "Hate Crimes"), and a recurring role as Rear Admiral Thomas Boone on JAG.
O'Quinn made his breakthrough by appearing as the deranged serial killing title character in The Stepfather. His acting performance was praised by film critic Roger Ebert, from the Chicago Sun Times, who commented: "The Stepfather" has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance". O'Quinn gained a Saturn Award and an Independent Spirit Award for his performance. A sequel was released, two years after the first movie, but it wasn't as much as a success as the first movie, it grossed almost 1 million dollar less at the box office.
O'Quinn on Millennium
It was never explained why O'Quinn wasn't in the third instalment of the series, in which the stepfather character was portrayed by Robert Wightman.
In 1996 O'Quinn started acting in a tv show called Millennium, which was produced by Chris Carter. O'Quinn held this role for all three seasons of the series. Around 1995, O'Quinn made guest appearances in The X-Files and Harsh Realm, also produced by Chris Carter, who also cast him in the film The X-Files: Fight The Future. O'Quinn holds the distinction of having played four different characters within the extended X-Files/Millennium continuum (the two shows being classed together since both Lance Henriksen's character of Frank Black and Charles Nelson Reilly's character of Jose Chung have appeared in both shows).
Further information: John Locke (Lost) and Lost (TV series)
After a string of recurring appearances on Alias (2002–2003), as the FBI Director Kendall, O'Quinn became a favorite of television producer J.J. Abrams. Following a seven-episode guest run on The West Wing in 2003–2004, O'Quinn received a call from Abrams indicating that the producer wanted to cast him in his new television drama Lost without any audition. In 2005 and 2007, O'Quinn received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for his work as John Locke on Lost. O'Quinn admitted on the TV Guide Channel that he did not have much faith in the series Lost at first, calling it "The Mysterious Gilligan's Island of Dr. Moreau". On September 16, 2007, he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series for his role in Lost. In a Tv.com interview O'Quinn commented that the reason he felt comfortable playing this character is because he's a bit like him.
O'Quinn has been married to his wife, Lori, for 25 years. Most of that time they lived in Reisterstown, Maryland, but after Lost began airing, the couple decided to follow the example of O'Quinn's co-stars and move to Hawaii, where the series is shot. The couple own a home in Hawaii and one in Maryland. They have two sons, Oliver and Hunter. O'Quinn is also a grandfather of one girl.
