Lyman Ward

Lyman Ward is a Canadian actor who has worked in film and television and is best known for playing the father of the title teenager in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). He grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, finished high school there in 1959 and graduated from St. Thomas University in 1963. He appeared as Tad Schotz on the first episode of Laverne and Shirley. Ward also played a marketer named John in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), and his other credits include the films Creature and Milk and Honey. In 1990 he landed the role of Jim Walsh in the Beverly Hills, 90210 pilot, though the show recast it and his scenes were reshot with James Eckhouse. He later appeared in Not Another Teen Movie (2001) as Mr. Wyler, mocking his Ferris Bueller part, and in 2016 published the historical novel Fortune's Tide.