Kevin Dunn

Dunn was born in Chicago, the son of John Dunn, a musician and poet, and his wife Margaret (née East), a nurse. His sister is actress/comedian Nora Dunn. He also has a brother, Michael Dunn, a high school history teacher and football coach. He was raised in a Catholic family, and has Irish, English, Scottish, and German ancestry. Dunn graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1977, and received an honorary doctorate in 2008 from the same school.Dunn appeared in many live performances in Chicago and its suburbs, including the theater companies Northlight, Remains, Wisdom Bridge and Goodman before his TV and motion picture career. Dunn's work includes Samantha Who?, a series appearing on ABC from 2007 to 2009, as well as playing Ron Witwicky in Michael Bay's Transformers film series. His film appearances include Small Soldiers, Stir of Echoes, Godzilla, Snake Eyes, Nixon, Mad Love, Ghostbusters II, Dave, Beethoven's 2nd, Hot Shots!, and 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Dunn also played Murry Wilson in a 2000 miniseries, The Beach Boys: An American Family. He played President Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, Charles Colson, in Nixon and played President Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, in the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11. In 2000, he co-starred in Bette, a sitcom starring Bette Midler, in which he played her husband in the show's first 11 episodes. From 2004 to 2006 Dunn had a small recurring role as Terry Hardwick, a baseball coach and mentor to Tyler Hoechlin character Martin Brewer, on the long-running family drama 7th Heaven. Dunn played Joel Horneck, Jerry's overzealous childhood friend, in the Seinfeld episode "Male Unbonding". He has also featured in Live Free or Die as well as the 2006 film Gridiron Gang. Dunn is an executive producer of the award-winning documentary film Kumpanía: Flamenco Los Angeles (2011). Dunn played the role of White House Chief of Staff Ben Cafferty in HBO's late 2010s political comedy Veep.