Miguel Ferrer is surrounded by legends. It’s actually genetic: his father was Miguel Ferrer, the first Latino actor to win an Academy Award (for The Caine Mutiny). His mother was the equally legendary singer Rosemary Clooney, and Miguel toured with her and Bing Crosby when he was a boy (in fact, he didn’t start taking acting seriously until after Crosby died.) George Clooney is his cousin. So is Carlos Campo, the first Hispanic president of Regent University. He’s bandmates with Bill (Lost in Space) Mumy. Debby (You Light Up My Life) Boone is his sister-in-law.
We’re not finished. He played drums on a Keith Moon album in 1975; he was good friends with the late Brandon Lee and he’s still friends with Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). He even helped her prepare for the role, back in the Year Zero. He won a Grammy. And an Imagen. And he has been in more classic movies than most people have seen, from Star Track III: The Search for Spock to RoboCop to Twin Peaks to Traffic (for which he shared a Screen Actors Guild Award). He’s probably best-remembered for his seven-year stint on Crossing Jordan, where he perfected his gravel-voiced tough-guy-with-a-heart character that’s reappeared, in one form or another, on everything from the short-lived Bionic Woman reboot to the recently and quickly deceased The Protector. And now he’s doing a multi-episode arc of Desperate Housewives, playing someone entirely different: “‘a renowned and temperamental artist’ who crosses paths with Susan (Teri Hatcher).”
It’s just a pleasure to watch him work. There’s no artifice, no “doing funny voices and pulling faces,” as Hugh (House) Laurie recently called ‘acting.’ And for all his history of walking among Hollywood royalty, Miguel Ferrer consistently offers a sense of honesty, authenticity, realness that–frankly–is going to be a welcome change for the people of Wisteria Lane in their waning days.
Season 8, collectively known as Kiss Them Goodbye, begins Sunday 9/25 at 9P. It’s always been worth watching, if only for Eva and Ricardo…and now we have Miguel in the mix as well. What a great way to go out.
