William Petersen Biography, Age, Family, Education, Career, Net Worth, Marriage

Who is William Petersen?

William Louis Petersen is a well-recognized American actor and producer. Petersen is best recognized for his role as Gil Grissom in the CBS drama collection CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-2015). The movie won him a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. He was also nominated for three Prime Emmy Awards as a producer of the show. Petersen reprised his role as Gil Grissom in the sequel CSI: Vegas, which premiered on 6 October 2021.

William has additionally starred in the movies To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Manhunter (1986), and Young Guns II (1990). As well as in Fear (1996), The Contender (2000), Detachment (2011) and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012). On February 3, 2009, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

William Career

Petersen obtained his initial break in 1985 when he played a Secret Service agent gone rogue to avenge his mentor in William Friedkin’s 1985 action movie To Live and Die in L.A. One year later in 1986, he portrayed FBI agent Will Graham in the first Hannibal Lecter movie, Manhunter. Due to the fact that his role was emotionally exhausting, Petersen did everything he could to rid himself of Graham after completing principal photography. William shaved off his beard, cut his hair, and bleached it blond.

William additionally claims to have done it because, while rehearsing for a play in Chicago, his dialogue was always coming out like Graham’s; he dyed his hair so he would look in the mirror and see a different person. Petersen refused a part in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, due to the fact that it would keep him in the Philippines, and away from his family. He opted to work on the 1987 HBO made-for-TV film Long Gone as a minor league baseball player and manager named Cecil ”Stud” Cantrell.

How old is William Petersen?

William Louis Petersen was born on February 21, 1953, in Evanston, Illinois, U.S., and is aged 68 as of 2021. He shares his birthday with numerous famous people including Larry Drake, Sophie Turner, Elliot Page, Alan Rickman, Jordan Peele, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kelsey Grammer, William Baldwin, among others.

William Petersen Family

Who are William Petersen’s parents?

William Louis Petersen was born in Evanston, Illinois, as the youngest among six children of Helen June Hoene (1909-2006) and Arthur Edward Petersen Sr., (1907-2004). His father worked in the furniture business. William is of Danish and German ancestry and was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother.

Does William Petersen have siblings?

Petersen was born as the youngest of six children in the family. As the youngest, he has two older brothers, Arthur Petersen Jr. and Robert Petersen, and three older sisters, Anne Petersen, Mary Kay Petersen, and Elizabeth Petersen.

William Petersen Education

Petersen studied at Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, and graduated in 1972. He received a football scholarship from Idaho State University and took an acting course at the school which changed his life. In 1974, he left school together with his wife Joanne to follow a drama professor to the Basque country, where he studied as a Shakespearean actor.

William Petersen Interests

Petersen had interests in Basque culture and he studied the Basque language and named his daughter the Basque name ”Maite Nerea” (”My Beloved”). His interest in acting returned him to Idaho but later to Chicago to live with his relatives. In Chicago, he was active in the theater and earned his Actor’s Equity card. Petersen performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which he has been an ensemble member since 2008. He was also a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble, including other famous Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine.

Petersen is a big Chicago Cubs fan. He is a strong Christian as he described to Playboy in 2004, a near-death experience he had in the 1980s that gave the ”assurance” that there is an afterlife.

William Petersen Wife

Petersen married his college sweetheart Joanne Brady in 1974 while still in University. They had one daughter in 1975 before they broke up and went separate ways in 1981. William got engaged to his longtime girlfriend Gina Cirone in March 2002. They later married in June 2003, in Petrignanao, Italy. The couple is happily married to date and has two children via surrogate, however, the children were born premature but are doing great.

William Petersen Children

Petersen has three children and two grandsons altogether. His first child with his first wife is a daughter, Maite Nerea, born in 1975. She has two sons Mazrik William, born in October 2003, and Indigo August, born in August 2009. His other two children are twins, a son, and a daughter born through a surrogate with his second wife Cirone on July 5, 2011.

William Petersen Residence

Petersen and his loving wife, Gina happily live in their house in Los Angeles, California, United States.

William Petersen Height

Actor and producer Petersen has a well-built and muscular body with a height of 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) and a weight of 76 kg (168 lbs).

Career

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1990 to 2000

William was also offered the position of Henry Hill in the movie Goodfellas but refused it. An expose about the movie in the May 2015 issue of Playboy claims that he turned down the audition altogether. Petersen portrayed U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy in a 1990 ABC three-part miniseries, The Kennedys of Massachusetts. The movie won an Emmy and a Golden Globe from eight and two nominations, respectively. He also played the infamous Patrick Floyd ”Pat” Garrett in Young Guns II in 1990.

Petersen appeared in a CBS TV miniseries, Return to Lonesome Dove, as former Ranger Gideon Walker in 1993. He portrayed Steven Walker, a father who stops at nothing to end the relationship between his daughter and her vicious boyfriend in Fear (1996). He also played Governor Jack Hathaway, an unscrupulous candidate for vice president after the demise of the incumbent, in The Contender in 2000. Petersen performed uncredited in the noir thriller Mulholland Falls as a character who finds he is on the violent receiving end of a Los Angeles police squad’s tactics. He played in Kiss the Sky as ”Jeff” in 1999 and appeared as part of an all-star cast in a remake of the 1997 movie 12 Angry Men (as Juror #12, a.k.a. ”the Snob”).

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2000 to present

William portrayed Dr. Gil Grissom in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation from 2000 to 2010. He took a break from CSI in 2006 to appear in a five-week run of the Trinity Repertory Company production of Dublin Carol through Conor McPherson, in Providence, Rhode Island. William renewed his contract with CBS to play on CSI for the 2008-09 season, for $600,000 per episode.

The Associated Press announced that he was departing from the show as a regular after Season 9’th tenth episode on July 15, 2008. He was leaving to pursue advanced stage-acting opportunities, however, he might return for guest spots. Petersen remained an executive producer of the program and later reprised his character in the eleventh-season episode ”The Two Mrs. Grissoms”, which aired on February 3, 2011. He returned in 2015 as a guest in the series finale, ”Immortality.” Petersen revealed to come back together with Jorja Fox, for a CSI sequel in February 2020, before the series was changed to CSI: Vegas.

William Petersen Net Worth

American actor and producer, William has been active from 1976 to date and earns $600,000 per episode from the CSI. He has produced and starred in many films and has garnered up an estimated net worth of $40 million as of 2021.