David Rasche is an American theater, film and television actor who is best known for his portrayal of the title character in the 1980s satirical police sitcom Sledge Hammer! Since then he has often played characters in positions of authority, in both serious and comical turns. In television he is known for his recurring performances in L.A. Law, Monk, The West Wing, Veep, and Succession.
He worked as a writer and teacher, including teaching English for two years at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. He performed for two years in Chicago's Second City improvisation group after studying there, and he also helped found Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, investing $1,000. After Second City, he starred in the Organic Theater's 1974 production of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which established the playwright's characteristic blend of earthy, sometimes brutal dialogue. He began appearing on television and films in 1977, making his film debut in 1978 in An Unmarried Woman, directed by Paul Mazursky. The following year, he had a small part in Woody Allen's Manhattan. He played a terrorist in the 1983 television filmSpecial Bulletin. He appeared on the Miami Vice episode "Bushido" as a KGB agent attempting to capture a former colleague of Lt. Castillo. During his subsequent starring role on Sledge Hammer! his character often made jokes about Miami Vice. Rasche played Petruchio to Frances Conroy's Kate in a production of Shakespeare'sTaming of the Shrew directed by Zoe Caldwell at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut in the mid-1980s.
''Sledge Hammer!''
Rasche is best known for his portrayal of the title character in the satirical television sitcom Sledge Hammer!, which ran from 1986 to 1988. The show was a spoof of police dramas and concerned the character Sledge Hammer, a violent and chauvinistic police inspector with a taste for large and powerful weaponry.
Later work
Rasche had a minor role as a photographer in the movie Cobra alongside Brigitte Nielsen. Shortly after Sledge Hammer! ended, he played to critical acclaim in the Broadway production of Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, and he later appeared in an Off-Broadway revival of Mamet's Edmond. Rasche was lead character Buddy Wheeler in the 1990 Biker Comedy Masters of Menace. He played Parnelli, one of two corrupt narcotics police officers, in the 1990 Tom Selleck crime drama, “An Innocent Man” Rasche played the role of Ted Forstmann in the 1993 made-for-television movie Barbarians at the Gate, about the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. Rasche had a leading role in the 1997 Columbo episode, "A Trace of Murder." In addition to his work as a screen actor, Rasche can also be heard as Captain Piett in the NPR radio adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back. He portrayed Donald Greene, one of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, in Paul Greengrass' 2006 9/11 film United 93. He had a major role in the 2009 satirical political comedy In the Loop, as a US official pushing for an invasion of an unspecified Middle Eastern country. Starting February 14, 2017 he played George Antrobus in Theatre for a New Audience's production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, opposite Kecia Lewis as Maggie Antrobus.
