Notable Guest Stars
The show had quite a number of notable guest stars, many of whom became major stars within a few years of their appearances. Eight-year-old Macaulay Culkin appeared in one episode as a kidnap victim. Nine-year-old Melissa Joan Hart appeared as a young girl whom McCall protected from her ex-con father. Christian Slater appeared as a high-school student in the episode "Joyride". Kevin Spacey played a corrupt police officer. Reginald VelJohnson appeared as a D.J. John Goodman played a single father who was tricked by co-worker Joe Morton into taking part in a robbery. Stewart Copeland, who composed the show's theme song and much of its music, made a cameo as a pickpocket. Vincent D'Onofrio appeared twice in the series playing the arsonist son of a mobster in his first appearance and as a mentally-challenged man falsely accused of murder in his second. William Converse-Roberts appeared twice, first as the murderer in D'Onofrio's second appearance and later as a widower out to silence a gun control advocate after his wife was raped and killed in front of him. Adam Ant played a villain in an episode that also featured J. T. Walsh, Dermot Morgan, David Alan Grier, Lori Petty, and Luis Guzman. Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys made a rare acting appearance in an episode alongside Alex Winter. Bradley Whitford appeared as a brutal young thug whose terrorizing of a hitch-hiking couple leads to a siege of the weaponless McCall and his son who are away on a father-son weekend. Melissa Sue Anderson played McCall's daughter by an old girlfriend. Shelby Anderson lent her singing ability as a lounge singer in an episode that also involved her giant panda, ZhenZhen.
Other well-known stars at the time, as well as future stars, who appeared on the show included E.G. Marshall, Laurence Fishburne, Lauren Tom, Patricia Clarkson, Jennifer Grey, Laurie Metcalf, Oliver Platt, Patricia Richardson, William H. Macy, Robin Curtis, Steve Buscemi, Roma Maffia, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Moriarty, Chris Cooper, Michael Rooker, David Strathairn, Charles S. Dutton, Cynthia Nixon, Bruce Payne, Laura San Giacomo, Kasi Lemmons, Al Leong, Ving Rhames, Amanda Plummer, Daniel Davis, Jon Polito, Jasmine Guy, Mark Linn-Baker, Meat Loaf, Lori Loughlin, Michael Wincott, Tony Shalhoub, Anthony Zerbe, and Stanley Tucci.
The series also made good use of its New York City setting by employing actors who were appearing on Broadway in the late 1980s as guest stars. These included Terrence Mann, Frances Ruffelle, Kevin Conway, J. Smith-Cameron, Philip Bosco, Caitlin Clarke, Josef Sommer, Jim Dale, Christine Baranski, and Anne Twomey.
Additionally, several former stage and screen co-stars of Edward Woodward appeared on the show. These included Brian Bedford, Tammy Grimes (real-life mother of the aforementioned Ms. Plummer), Gwen Verdon, Sandy Dennis, Jenny Agutter, Shirley Knight, and Sylvia Sidney. Harvard-educated Shakespearean theatre, Broadway stage, screen, and film actor Richard Jordan appeared as the character Harley Gage in 10 episodes.
Woodward's second wife, Michele Dotrice, appeared as the central character in the season 2 episode, "Heartstrings". Her father, Roy Dotrice, also guest starred on the show in season 4's "Trial By Ordeal". Edward Woodward's son, actor Tim Woodward, appeared as McCall's father in a flashback scene in "Prisoners of Conscience", also in season 4.
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