Richard Dean Anderson (born January 23, 1950) is an American actor and producer. He began his television career in 1976, playing Dr. Jeff Webber in the American soap-opera series General Hospital, then rose to prominence as the lead actor in the television series MacGyver (1985–1992). He later appeared in films such as Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992), Pandora's Clock (1996), and Firehouse (1997).
In 1997, Anderson returned to television as the lead actor of the series Stargate SG-1, a spin-off of the 1994 film Stargate. He played the lead from 1997 to 2005 and had a recurring role from 2005 to 2007. Since 1997, he has starred in only one film: Stargate: Continuum, released in 2008, as a spin-off film after the Stargate SG-1 series finale in 2007. He appeared in the follow-up Stargate series Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: Universe (as Major General and later Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill).