Photo: Rob Dicaterino / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
What strikes me about Danson is the lightness. Comedy careers usually calcify — the timing stays, but the joy drains. Danson went the other way: Sam Malone was a star turn, yet his late-career work in The Good Place is, to my eye, even better — looser, more generous. He has mastered the hardest trick in ensemble comedy: making everyone around him funnier. Two Emmys and a Walk of Fame star actually understate it; his real achievement is sustaining curiosity across four decades without ever coasting on charm. I think of him as proof that comic acting is a craft you can deepen forever, and that plain decency reads on camera.
Overview
Edward Bridge Danson III (born December 29, 1947) is an American actor. He achieved stardom playing the lead character Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1982–1993), for which he received two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. He was further Emmy-nominated for the FX legal drama Damages (2007–2010) and the NBC comedy The Good Place (2016–2020). He received the 2025 Carol Burnett Award.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Ted Danson
- Name (Japanese)
- テッド・ダンソン
- Reading
- てっど・だんそん
- Born
- December 29, 1947 (age 78)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Capricorn / Boar
- Origin
- San Diego, California, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- 74 cm
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- actor / television actor / film actor / television producer / film producer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Carnegie Mellon University
Awards & achievements
- 2018 honorary doctor of Carnegie-Mellon University
- 1990 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
- 1993 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
- star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Actor — see all → · Television actor — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.