 David Boreanaz is an American actor, television producer, and director, known for his role as Angel on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and as Special Agent Seeley Booth on the television crime drama Bones.
David Boreanaz was born on May 16, 1969 in Buffalo, New York, where his father, Dave Roberts (né Boreanaz), was working as a weather forecaster and children’s show host as Dave Thomas, for ABC affiliate WKBW-TV, and his mother, Patti Boreanaz, was a travel agent. He is of Italian descent on his father’s side (the surname Boreanaz is of Northern Italian origin). His mother is of half Slovak and part Irish, German, French, and Swiss descent.
When Boreanaz was nine years old, the family moved to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area after his father took a job at WPVI-TV, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. Boreanaz attended Rosemont School of the Holy Child in his early years and then high school at Malvern Preparatory School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and went to college at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.
David Boreanaz’s first paid acting appearance was a 1993 guest spot on the American sitcom, Married... with Children, as Kelly’s two-timing biker boyfriend, who gets pummeled by her father, Al. He was cast in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after being suggested for the role to Marti Noxon by one of Boreanaz’s neighbors, after walking his dog past their house. In the cult series, he played the mysterious Angel, a vampire cursed with a soul as punishment for his past sins. The show became enormously successful and Boreanaz starred in a spin-off series, Angel, which gave the character a chance to evolve and concentrated on Angel’s battle for redemption for the sins he committed before he regained his soul. He appeared on Buffy from 1997 to 1999, at which point he began starring in Angel, which ran until 2004, with some guest appearances on Buffy after his departure.
Boreanaz’s only starring role in a major theatrical film was in 2001’s slasher horror film, Valentine, alongside Denise Richards and Katherine Heigl. In 2002, he had a supporting role in a Lifetime television movie titled I’m with Lucy. In 2003, he appeared in the music video for singer Dido’s hit single “White Flag,” and was the voice of Leon (Squall Leonhart) in the video game Kingdom Hearts, but he did not reprise his role in the sequel. In 2005, Boreanaz began starring opposite Emily Deschanel on the current prime time television series, Bones. He also appeared in These Girls, a Canadian film in which he played a biker; the film received a limited theatrical release in Canada in March 2006, after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival. He has also starred in the independent films Mr. Fix It and Suffering Man’s Charity (released on DVD as Ghost Writer), as well as the direct-to-DVD sequel The Crow: Wicked Prayer in which he starred alongside Tara Reid. In 2006, he starred in another DVD release, The Hard Easy, which also starred Nick Lachey.
In that same year, he also voiced Hal Jordan in the direct to video DC Comics animated feature Justice League: The New Frontier. In the season three finale of his TV series Bones, Boreanaz’s character Seeley Booth is seen in his bathtub reading an issue of Green Lantern, the character he voiced in that feature.
As well as being a producer on Bones since its third season, Boreanaz also directed a number of episodes, including “The Bones That Foam,” “The Parts in the Sum of the Whole,” “The Bullet in the Brain,” and “The Blackout in the Blizzard.” It has also since been reported by Hart Hanson, the creator of Bones, that Boreanaz has directed and starred in the series’ 100th episode airing in the fifth season. BuddyTV ranked him No. 13 on its “TV’s 100 Sexiest Men of 2010” list and No. 18 in 2011. |
