Brian Dennehy

About this actor

Brian Mannion Dennehy (born July 9, 1938) is an American actor of film, stage and screen. Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service doctor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was raised Roman Catholic. The family relocated to Long Island, New York, where Dennehy attended Chaminade High School in the town of Mineola. Rather than immediately chase his dreams of stage and screen, Dennehy enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1959, actively serving until 1963. Although he said in numerous interviews that he had fought in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, even telling harrowing tales of his service there, it was revealed in the 1998 book Stolen Valor by B.G. Burkett that Dennehy had never served overseas at all during his time in the military. Later that year, Dennehy admitted to the tabloid The Globe "I lied about serving in Vietnam and I'm sorry. That was very...