John Forsythe

Nearly as recognizable for his elegant, deliberative baritone voice as his silver-mane and WASPy visage, John Forsythe built a career as an unassuming TV everydad and a reliable and, by his own reckoning, "workmanlike" actor, before becoming one of biggest names in show business in the 1980s. Forsythe imprinted his star in the pop culture firmament in ratings-topping 1970s and 1980s "campy" television institutions "Charlie's Angels" (ABC, 1976-1981) and "Dynasty" (ABC, 1981-89), but he arrived there with a long background on New York stages, including the distinction of being an original member of New York's now-renowned Actor's Studio, and prolific work at the dawn of the TV age. At the height of the success of "Dynasty," he came to be the medium's face of the opulence and excesses of go-go 1980s America, even as he long remained humble to a fault as to his own mark on his trade.