Kaj-Erik Eriksen (born 15 February 1979) is a Canadian American actor. He is best known for his roles as Danny Farrell in the television series The 4400, Jeremy Peters in the television series Boston Public, and as the son of the main character in the 1990s show The Commish.

Career

Eriksen began his acting career in Vancouver, British Columbia at the age of six. After only a few jobs as an extra and a couple of small speaking roles, he got his first big break when he landed a part in the independent film Quarantine. The shoot was very low budget and the cast and crew had to climb through broken windows to get to the set that was inside an abandoned, rat-infested warehouse. Kaj-Erik loved it and was hooked on acting right away.

Shortly after Quarantine, Kaj-Erik did his first of two guest stars on the TV show MacGyver, which was his favorite show as a child.

In 1991, after working on a number of movies, and guest starring on various television series, Kaj booked the role of David Scali, the son of Michael Chiklis' character on the long-running ABC drama The Commish. The well-respected show catapulted Eriksen into the mainstream American TV world, earning him nominations for a Hollywood Reporter Youth Star Award, a Youth in Film Award, and two YTV Achievement awards.

Melinda Leigh McGraw (born October 25, 1963) is an American actress. She has starred in movies such as Albino Alligator (1996), Wrongfully Accused (1998), and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), and is also known for her television performances on The Commish, The X-Files, and Mad Men.

Early life

McGraw was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to American parents. The youngest of three daughters, she grew up in Cambridge and Dover in the Boston area. Her father served as a diplomat for the Agency of International Development before becoming an executive with a major hotel in Boston. She attended the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge and got her start in acting with the Boston Children's Theater. After attending Bennington College, McGraw was accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London (one of only seven women admitted in her year). Theatrical performances in the West End and elsewhere in Britain followed, among them Don Carlos, The Foreigner and Twelfth Night. She returned to America in 1990.

The Commish is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on ABC in the United States from 1991 to 1996. The series focuses on the work and home life of a suburban police commissioner in upstate New York.

Synopsis

The series stars Michael Chiklis as Tony Scali, a former NYPD detective who is now the police commissioner in the small upstate New York town of Eastbridge, and tends to work through problems with humor and creativity more often than with violence or force. Theresa Saldana plays Rachel Scali, Tony's wife, and Kaj-Erik Eriksen plays their young son, David. Also living with the family in the first season was Rachel's freeloading brother, Arnie Metzger, played by David Paymer. A daughter, Sarah, played by twins Justine and Dayna Cornborough, was born to Tony and Rachel in the second season. The show focused as much on family situations as it did on police drama. The series often deals with a wide range of topical social issues such as police corruption, racism, homophobia, drug addiction, disabilities, child abuse, illegal immigration, and sexual harassment. The series ran for five seasons.

Michael Charles Chiklis (born August 30, 1963 in Lowell, Massachusetts) is an American actor, director, and television producer. Some of the roles for which he is best known; for include Commissioner Tony Scali on the ABC police drama The Commish, LAPD Detective Vic Mackey on the FX police drama The Shield, The Thing in the Fantastic Four film series, and Jim Powell on the ABC science-fiction comedy-drama No Ordinary Family. He also co-starred as Vincent Savino in the CBS crime drama Vegas. In 2014 Chiklis joined the cast of American Horror Story for its fourth season, American Horror Story: Freak Show. The following year he was cast as Nathaniel Barnes, in the second season of Gotham, as a series regular.

Early life

Chiklis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. His mother, Katherine (née Vousboukis), is a hospital administrative aide, and his father, Charlie Chiklis, runs a hair/beauty salon. Chiklis has been described as inheriting his acting ability from his mother. His father is a second-generation Greek American (his parental ancestors came from Lesbos) and his mother is of Greek and Irish descent. Chiklis grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and began entertaining his family with celebrity imitations when he was five years old. As a child, Chiklis appeared in regional theater productions and became a member of the Actors' Equity Association at age thirteen. In the ninth grade, he portrayed Hawkeye Pierce in Andover High School's production of M*A*S*H. He later attended Boston University College of Fine Arts, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts.