Alan Dale | NZ On Screen

Most of the Kiwi actors who have built careers in Hollywood — from Nola Luxford through to Cliff Curtis — set up shop in the United States before they had turned 30. At that age Alan Dale had just begun his screen career; he would be in his early 50s before deciding "to take a chance" on Los Angeles. Since then, Dale has carved out an impressive gallery of authority figures on television and film, including turns in such high profile TV shows as The OC, Ugly Betty and Lost.

Dale’s parents opened his eyes to drama. Theatre-mad, they built a 100-seat amateur theatre in Auckland; Dale found himself backstage, working the wind machine. At 12 he was doing comedy at school talent shows.

After leaving school, Dale realised that he "got the same buzz" from rugby and theatre. But there was more longevity in the later. As he recalls in this video interview he was doing a six-month stint as a milkman when he heard a radio DJ quit on-air. The same day, he talked his way into the job. The day he got offered the afternoon slot, Dale learnt that he'd won his first screen role, as the charming but cocky boss of a radio station in 1978 soap Radio Waves. Though the show did not last, it offered "nine months of solid work and great fun".

Finding local opportunities lacking, Dale headed for Australia and soon landed three and a half years work as one of the doctors on soap The Young Doctors. Dale found fame following the launch of Neighbours in 1985. Dale did eight years playing solo father Jim Robinson, but the experience ended badly after he argued that showmakers Grundy were underpaying the cast, while selling the show around the globe.

Dale then returned to New Zealand to join fellow Kiwi export Erik Thomson in short-lived police series Plainclothes. Finding it hard to get ongoing parts, Dale worked on a number of American productions that were shooting in Australia. After discovering some of the American actors were getting $70,000 for a week’s work, he decided it was time to try his luck in the United States.

By the start of 2000 Dale was living in Los Angeles, and offering himself as a fresh, cheap, "middle-aged face". At drama classes he realised the best bet was to work out the specific types of roles he had the best chance of being cast in. "Others in the class said I was a little bit Anthony Hopkins and a little bit Sean Connery and that went into my head".

After his first US-based role, forgotten 2001 series Signs of Life (about a struggling rock band) guest roles quickly followed in ER (as an injured South African surfer) and The X Files. Alpha males and authority figures began to pile up: generals (Dominion), senators (The West Wing, The Killing) and kings (fantasy series Once Upon a Time). Dale has also played a number of presidents, vice presidents and prime ministers (Homeland, 24, Australian miniseries Secret City).

But it was big business magnates that made all the difference. In 2002 he played dodgy tycoon Caleb Nichol on new show The OC. The show’s mixture of melodrama, sex appeal and self-parody generated media heat. Dale was understandably disappointed when his manager told him he was set to have a heart attack and drown late in the second season.

But bad luck spawned good luck. The OC’s next season was widely panned; meanwhile, after another actor proved troublesome, Dale was invited at a day’s notice to join new show Ugly Betty. Dale played the publishing mogul who picks Betty to be PA to his magazine editor son. The show won a Golden Globe and more for the ensemble cast; further mogul roles followed on Lost and Entourage (as fictional owner of Warner Brothers).

By now New York Observer writer Christopher Rosen was arguing Dale had become the guy to call when casting directors needed a conservative-looking authoritarian. "When he comes onto the screen, audiences immediately take him seriously, since he radiates rich, smug and serious."

In 2017 Dale took on the role of Anders, the wise and all-seeing butler of the Carrington family, in a reboot of 1980s hit Dynasty. He acted in the high-powered soap for four seasons, before leaving the show in mid 2021.

It hasn’t been all smug, serious and stateside. In 2008 the longtime Monty Python fan grabbed the chance to extend his comedy chops, when he sang and danced in West End musical Spamalot. Dale played King Arthur, followed by a man making horseclopping noises with some coconut shells. Dale parodied himself on British series Moving Wallpaper, and series two of Kiwi comedy Auckland Daze. He cameoed as the Australian ambassador in Flight of the Conchords, and has fond memories of playing a gay English waiter to American rapper Bow Wow, for a comedy pilot that never took off.

Profile updated on 29 November 2021

Sources include
'Alan Dale: NZ to Neighbours to Hollywood...' (Video interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Gemma Gracewood. Loaded 18 August 2014. Accessed 29 November 2021
Rebecca Barry Hill, ‘Alan Dale shares his Hollywood highs and heartbreak’ (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 15 February 2007
Bruce Dessau, ‘Alan Dale: the journey from Neighbours to king of Spamalot‘ (Interview) -The Times, 8 March 2008
Eric Goldman, 'IGN interview: Alan Dale' IGN website. Loaded 24 August 2006. Accessed 29 November 2021
Christopher Rosen, ‘Don’t Know Alan Dale? Yes You Do!’ - The New York Observer, 20 October 2008
‘20 Questions With ... Alan Dale’ (Interview) What’s On Stage website (Broken link). Loaded 10 March 2008. Accessed 21 August 2013