Dylan McDermott (born Mark Anthony McDermott; October 26, 1961) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the legal drama series The Practice, which earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama and a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
McDermott is also known for his roles in four seasons (first, second, eighth and ninth) of the FX horror anthology series American Horror Story, subtitled Murder House, Asylum, Apocalypse, and 1984 portraying Ben Harmon, Johnny Morgan and Bruce, respectively. He also starred as Lt. Carter Shaw on the TNT series Dark Blue and starred in two short-lived CBS dramas, Hostages and Stalker.
McDermott was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the son of Diane and Richard McDermott. He is of Italian (from his maternal grandfather), Irish, English, and French descent. Diane was fifteen and Richard was seventeen when McDermott was born; by 1967, the couple had divorced, and Diane and her two children were living with her mother, Avis (Rogers) Marino. On February 9, 1967, Diane was shot and killed. Her death was originally ruled an accident, but police later claimed that evidence they had found would be enough to file murder charges against John Sponza, who had been living with Diane at the time. Sponza told authorities that Diane shot herself (despite the fact that she was right-handed and shot in the back of the left side of her head) after picking up a gun he had been cleaning. Sponza, who police say had ties to organized crime, was killed in 1972; his body was found in the trunk of a car in a Waltham, Massachusetts, grocery store parking lot.