This page uses content from the G.D. Spradlin biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

Gervais Duan Spradlin (born August 31 1920 in Daylight Township, Garvin County, Oklahoma, USA) is an American character actor. He often plays devious Southern types. He is credited in over 70 television and film productions, and has performed alongside such notable actors as Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, Robert Duvall, Michael Douglas, Danny Devito, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Jack Palance, Martin Sheen, Christopher Walken, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Nolte, and Harrison Ford.

He first began his career as an attorney working in Venezuela and then became an independent oil producer forming Rouge Oil Company. Before he turned to acting he was active in local politics campaigning for John F. Kennedy in 1959. He joined the Oklahoma Repertory Theatre in 1964 after his daughter, Wendy Spradlin, took him to a father-daughter acting competition.

One of his most famous roles was as a deeply corrupt US Senator of Nevada, Pat Geary, in The Godfather, Part II, who gets the ultimate form of blackmail, (he is drugged, set up for the murder of prostitute, in a Coreleone brothel, Tom Hagen says the Coreleone Family will cover an excuse for the senator) when he speaks down to (Mr. Core-lee-own-E) Michael Corleone. He also played one of the co-conspirators in the attempted assassination of a state governor in Nick of Time. Among his film credits include Apocalypse Now (as the General who assigns Martin Sheen's character into the search mission) Ed Wood and The Long Kiss Goodnight as the President of the United States.

Spradlin's work in One on One and North Dallas Forty has earned him credit in sports circles for his unofficial portrayal of Tom Landry in "North Dallas Forty" and as a win-at-all-costs coach in "One on One".

A notable break for Mr. Spradlin resulted from his work in television in the 1960s. Fred Roos, an accomplished Producer/Director/Casting Director had cast Mr. Spradlin in such television shows as "I Spy" and "Gomer Pyle, USMC." When Mr. Roos Co-Produced The Godfather: Part II he recommended Mr. Spradlin play the Senator. The role helped establish Spradlin as a confident, authoritarian figure which led to his portrayal of many such figures in his future roles.

Spradlin retired from acting after his last film Dick (movie).

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