As a macho military leader, it’s no surprise that longtime “NCIS” protagonist Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ (Mark Harmon) complex relationship with his father is key to the man he is in the show’s present day. Ralph Waite is the actor who played Gibbs’ father, Jackson, over the course of his appearances in eight “NCIS” episodes between Seasons 6 and 10.
Gibbs first introduces his father to the rest of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service team in Season 6, Episode 4. His final credit is in Season 11, Episode 24, where Gibbs learns that his father died of a stroke. In a piece for Entertainment Weekly, former “NCIS” showrunner Gary Glasberg revealed that this episode’s focus on Jackson arose from a desire to dedicate a storyline to Waite’s memory after the actor’s death in February 2014. “We had something very real happen to us off-screen. We lost someone we truly cared about. And now it was time to let Leroy Jethro Gibbs say goodbye to his father, too,” Glasberg wrote.
Before his “NCIS” run, which came near the end of his acting career, Waite was a frequent performer in both TV and film whose likeness plenty of viewers may well recognize from one or more of his past projects.
Ralph Waite’s Hollywood career spanned nearly 50 years
Arguably the single most defining role of Ralph Waite’s career was John Walton Sr. in the CBS drama “The Waltons.” As a member of the show’s main cast, he appeared in a total of 196 episodes between 1972 and 1981 and even returned to the character in subsequent films like “A Walton Easter” in 1997.
Prior to “The Waltons,” one of Waite’s very first film gigs was as a prisoner named Alibi in the iconic 1967 Paul Newman vehicle “Cool Hand Luke.” Other features featuring Waite in supporting roles include “The Grissom Gang,” “The Magnificent Seven Ride!,” “Kid Blue,” “The Bodyguard,” “Cliffhanger,” and “Timequest.”
Amidst these and other films, Waite was a prolific TV actor too. His first recurring role was in two episodes of the ABC cop show “N.Y.P.D.” starting in 1967. After “The Waltons,” he showed up in shows like “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Outer Limits,” “All My Children,” and “Bones.” One of his longest TV series tenures was a part in 16 episodes of the surreal HBO drama “Carnivàle” as Reverend Norman Balthus. His second-longest TV gig was in 70 episodes of the soap opera “Days of Our Lives” as a priest named Father Matt. His last “Days of Our Lives” episode aired in January 2014 and is his final screen credit.