Michael Shannon

Michael J. Shannon was an American actor and playwright, born in Chicago in 1943 and died in 2023, best known for screen roles in the film Little Shop of Horrors and the television series Red Dwarf, Future Cop and We'll Meet Again, his most substantial television roles being Officer John Haven and Major James Kiley. He studied theater arts at Northwestern University, earning a bachelor's degree and a master's in oral interpretation, and his stage work included A. R. Gurney's The Dining Room, which opened at Greenwich Theatre, London, in 1983. His first play, Deros On the Funny Farm, was staged at New Haven's Long Wharf Theater in 1981, with Kevin Bacon in the leading role. Presidents recurred in his work: he played John F. Kennedy on Red Dwarf, wrote and starred in the one-man show JFK on JFK, and penned Watching with Lincoln, produced in 2014 at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.