Allan Royal

Allan Royal is a Canadian actor who played crime reporter Tom Kirkwood on Night Heat from 1985 to 1989. Born in Montreal, he began performing in high school and studied with Lee Strasberg in New York before returning to Canada for Toronto stage work from the mid-1960s, joining the Toronto Arts Production theater company for new plays, Shakespeare and Molière through the 1970s. Before Night Heat ended, he had moved to Los Angeles hoping for film roles, but instead spent a year as novelist R.D. Young on Falcon Crest. His screen credits include Switching Channels (1988), a Toronto-shot remake of Front Page, and the television film Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999), where he played John Sculley. He later guest-starred on series such as Star Trek: Voyager and The Practice, played Chief Constable Stockton on Murdoch Mysteries and Judge Phillip Hopkins on Suits, and in 2011 returned to the Toronto stage in his one-man play The Disappearing Act.