Deadwood Silas

Background:

Son of famous landscape artist Neil Welliver, Titus Welliver was first remembered as physician Dr. Mondzac (1995-1998) on the seminal cop series ''NYPD Blue,'' and then as Officer Jake Lowery, a cop who embarks an interracial love affair with his female partner, on the Steven Bochco-produced on CBS, "Brooklyn South" (1997-1998). His most recent TV role was as debt collector Silas Adams in the HBO drama "Deadwood" (2004-2006). His other TV credits include "High Incident" (1996), "Murder One" (1996), "Falcone" (2000), "Big Apple" (2001), and "That's Life" (2001-2005).

On the big screen, the NYU graduate has appeared in such feature films as "Navy Seals" (1990), "Mulholland Falls" (1996), "Mobsters" (1991), "The Doors" (1991), and the film version of Laurence Fishburne's play "Riff Raff," "Once in the Life" (2000), in which he reprised his stage role as Torch. He also played roles in "Biker Boyz" (2003), "Twisted" (2004), "Assault on Precinct 13" (2005), and most recently, "Gone Baby Gone" (2007), playing Lionel McCready. He will next be seen in the upcoming films "The Narrows" and "Other People's Parties."

More personally, this 6' tall and lanky player with heavy brows and piercing eyes has been married and divorced twice. One of his ex-wife is actress Joanna Heimbold, with whom he has one son.

Artist Family

Childhood and Family:

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on March 12, 1961, Titus B. Welliver grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New York City. Son to well-known landscape painter Neil Welliver (1929 – 2005) and Norma Welliver, a fashion illustrator, Titus has three brothers, one of whom was killed over seas. Originally planning to follow his father's footsteps as a painter, Titus made up his mind and turned to acting.

The aspiring actor moved to New York in 1980 and learn his craft at New York¹s HB Acting Studios while attending New York University (NYU). Meanwhile, he did various jobs including bartender and construction worker to support himself.

Titus has been twice married and divorced. One of his former wife is actress Joanna Heimbold, whom he married in May of 1998. They have a son named Eamonn Lorcan Charles Welliver who was born on May 20, 1999. He has a second son born in 2002.

Titus, who plays the harmonica as a hobby, is active supporting environmental and charity organizations. He donates to AIDS research, to Project ALS and to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

That's Life

Career:

While honing his craft at New York University (NYU), Titus Welliver appeared in student productions of William Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet", "Oedipus" and "Semmelweiss." He then went on to Off-Broadway and performed in productions of David Mamet's "American Buffalo," Henrik Ibsen's "Class Enemy" and "The Rising of the Moon." He also appeared in several releases produced by Ruckus Films, including "Soldiers Home" and "Flamingo Love."

In the early 1990s, Welliver landed his first appearance in a mainstream feature, playing a tiny role of a redneck in a bar, in Lewis Teague-directed film "Navy SEALs," starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn. In the following year, he played a macing cop in Oliver Stone's musical biopic about lead singer of the famous and influential 1960's rock band Jim Morrison, "The Doors," starring Val Kilmer, and made first major screen role, portraying gang lord Al Capone, in the crime drama "Mobsters," with Christian Slater and Patrick Dempsey.

Meanwhile, Welliver made his TV debut, as Ralph Capone, in the TNT fact-based movie "The Lost Capone" (1990; alongside Adrian Pasdar and Eric Roberts), and was spotted as guest in an episode of "Matlock," "Beverly Hills, 90210," "The Commish," "Tales from the Crypt," "The X Files" and "New York Undercover." He also appeared in the TV movies "An American Story" (1992), "Blind Justice" (1994), and "One Woman's Courage" (1994)

In the mid 1990s, Welliver returned to stage to co-star as Billy 'Torch' Murphy, opposite Laurence Fishburne and Heavy D, in the Off-Broadway play "Riff Raff" (October 1995-December 1995), which was written by Fishburne and mounted at Circle in the Square Downtown, New York City, New York.

From 1995 to 1998, Welliver had a recurring role as physician Dr. Mondzac in the ABC's Emmy Award-winning and long-running cop drama "NYPD Blue," and was a regular in the CBS short-lived police procedural drama "Brooklyn South" (1997-1998), playing Off. Jake Lowery. Meanwhile, he appeared as a guest in the Fox vampire soap opera "Kindred: The Embraced," ABC cop drama "High Incident," ABC crime/drama thriller "Murder One," CBS police drama "Nash Bridges," ABC short-lived action-adventure series "Spy Game," and ABC legal drama "The Practice." He also appeared in the made-for-TV movies "Rough Riders" (1997), as B.F. Goodrich, and the TNT's "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" (1998), as Lewis Paine, the man who attempted to murder the US Secretary of State in 1865.

On the big screen, Welliver could be seen in the films "Born to Be Wild" (1995) and "Mulholland Falls" (1996; starring Nick Nolte and Melanie Griffith), as well as in the indies "The Big Fall" (1996; with C. Thomas Howell, Sophie Ward and Jeff Kober) and "The Clearing" (1997).

After his "Brooklyn South" and "NYPD Blue" stint ended, Welliver went to support Chris Penn, Jeffrey Wright and Sherilyn Fenn in Adrian Pasdar's 1999 neo-noir film, "Cement." He later spent the rest of the decade on television, in an episode of short-lived science fiction television series "Total Recall 2070" and the CBS long-running drama "Touched by an Angel," as well as in dual episode of UPN sci-fi series "Star Trek: Voyager." He also starred in the TV movie version of John Sandford's novel, "Mind Prey" (1999), as a mentally deranged man who takes his former psychiatrist (played by Sheila Kelley) and her two children as hostages in revenge for the torment he suffered while being incarcerated at a hospital.

Entering the new millennium, Welliver co-starred as a mobster in the CBS drama "Falcone," and reprised his stage role in Laurence Fishburne's film adaptation of his play "Riff Raff," "Once in the Life." He then had a regular role on the CBS short-lived cop drama TV series "Big Apple" (2001), as FBI Special Agent Jimmy Flynn, and joined the cast of the CBS dramedy series "That's Life" (2001-2005), as Dr. Eric Hackett, alongside Heather Paige Kent, Ellen Burstyn, Kevin Dillon and Paul Sorvino.

During this time, Welliver guest-starred in an episode of "UC: Undercover," "Third Watch," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "The Twilight Zone," and in two episodes of "Hack." He also appeared as a baseball player in the TV movie "Blonde" (2001; aka "Marilyn Monroe"), and was cast in two films, "Biker Boyz" (2003; with Fishburne) and Philip Kaufman's "Twisted" (2004; starring Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia).

From 2004 to 2006, Welliver played "the bagman from Yankton" Silas Adams, negotiator for Swearengen and part of Al's (played by Ian McShane) inner circle, in the HBO western drama series "Deadwood." Coming to the show as a recurring, he was eventually picked as the series regular in the second season. As a cast member of the show, Welliver has earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Meanwhile, Welliver played a guest role in the NBC cop/legal drama "Law & Order" and appeared in Jean-Francois Richet's 2005 remake of John Carpenter's 1976 action/thriller film, "Assault on Precinct 13," with Fishburne, Ethan Hawke, Gabriel Byrne, John Leguizamo, and Maria Bello.

Recently, in 2007, Welliver was spotted as a guest in "Numb3rs," "Kidnapped," "Jericho," "Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service," "Shark," and "Life." His new film, "Gone Baby Gone," a crime drama adapted (from the novel of the same title by Dennis Lehane) and directed by Ben Affleck, hit theaters on October 19, 2007. IN the film that stars Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, he portrayed Lionel McCready, the uncle of Madeline O'Brien's character.

Welliver will soon wrap his upcoming film projects, "The Narrows," which based on Tim McLoughlin's novel "Heart of the Old Country" and stars Kevin Zegers, Vincent D'Onofrio, Sophia Bush and Monica Keena, and "Other People's Parties" (2008), a comedy directed by R.A. White.

Awards:
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