Paul McCrane

For many television viewers, actor Paul McCrane was forever identified as the ill-tempered Dr. Robert Romano, whose reign of terror as chief of staff on "ER" (NBC, 1994-2004) ended spectacularly when a falling helicopter crushed him on the roof of County General. But McCrane's lengthy career showed a much wider range of talent, including a Grammy-winning turn as a talented art school student in "Fame" (1980) as well as stints on sitcoms and the Broadway stage. McCrane began his on-screen career as sensitive young men in "Fame" and "The Hotel New Hampshire" (1984), but by the mid-1980s, he shed his youthful appearance for a grittier look and segued into explosive character turns in "RoboCop" (1986) and "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994). Meanwhile, "ER" brought him widespread attention as a character that audiences loved to hate, and the exposure afforded him turns on "From the Earth to the Moon" (HBO, 1998) and "24" (Fox, 2001-2010). He went on to play a driven, but slightly unstable district attorney on the popular legal series, "Harry's Law" (NBC, 2010- ), which solidified McCrane's status as one of the small screen's most dependable character actors.