He was the recipient of the Carol Burnett Award. Danson made his film debut in in the crime drama The Onion Field. Mayor β , and the Netflix comedy A Man on the Inside βpresent. Danson has been married to actress Mary Steenburgen since Their ancestors lived in colonial New England and are descended from historical figures such as Anne Hutchinson.
In , at age 14, Danson enrolled at the Kent School , a university-preparatory school in Connecticut; he was a star player on the basketball team. He became interested in drama while later attending Stanford University. In his search for a better acting program, he transferred to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He graduated with a B. Danson began his television career as a contract player on the daytime soap opera Somerset. In , he played Dr. Mitchell Pierson on the daytime soap opera The Doctors , having also appeared earlier in as another character, Dr.
Chuck Weldon. On the show, he has an on-again-off-again relationship with the college-educated, sophisticated Diane Chambers. Although the show finished last in ratings in its first season, it was well-received by critics. Ratings gradually improved by , and by , Cheers was among the top ten most-viewed shows on television.
The series ran for 11 seasons β , with the series finale May 20, being watched by 80 million people, the second-most watched series finale in television history in During his time on the show, Danson won two of his 11 consecutive Emmy nominations for the role of Sam Malone, and won two of his nine Golden Globe nominations. Danson reprised the role of Sam Malone in a second-season episode of Frasier , and did the voiceover for his character in an episode of The Simpsons , " Fear of Flying ".
