Cox

His longest TV role may have been as patriarch George Apple of the feel-good family series Apple’s Way in the 1970s, but Ronny Cox made his movie fame typically playing either authority figures of questionable motive—or average guys like his breakout role as Drew Ballinger in 1972’s Deliverance.

As Captain Jellico on TNG, who replaces the absent Picard aboard the Enterprise in the two-part “Chain of Command,” Cox plays his efficient yet rough-around-the-edges commander with a lot of sympathetic touches. Many of his best-known performances are in that vein, including Andrew Bogomil in the Beverly Hills Cop movies and unctuous corporate demons in RoboCop and Total Recall, much less ruthless Robert Kinsey in the Stargate SG-1 series. He was also in the last season of NBC’s St. Elsewhere as Dr. John Gideon, and had a notable guest star turn on Desperate Housewives.

Many sci-fi and film buffs may not be surprised, then, that this native of Cloudcroft, N.M., also has a fully rounded career as a country-folk singer and guitarist. Cox has produced eight albums to date with Mercury and other labels, and continues to tour theatres and folk music festivals in between acting gigs.