Don McGraw

Acting

Born May 2, 1966 · Chicago, Illinois, USA

From IMDb; Don McGraw was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 2, 1966, to Donald P. McGraw, Jr., and the former Helen Ann Hughes. His father was a factory plant manager who made beer cans and his mother was a homemaker who previously had worked as a telephone operator for Illinois Bell. Because of his father's job, Don moved around during his youth, living for only three years in his home town and then variously in Longview, Texas; Gretna, Louisiana; and finally in Warner Robins, Georgia. In 1979, at the age of thirteen, Don auditioned for and won his first stage role: that of Noah Claypole in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. He did so on the advice of a classmate who reported that teenage girls were in abundance in community theatre... and that friend was right! What started out as a means to get dates quickly turned into a thirty-year avocation. Professionally, Don spent most of his adult life as a high school drama and English teacher, all the while amassing an impressive list of over 75 stage credits. Throughout these years, he also managed to direct around 45 plays and write another dozen. However, he never considered making a living at his craft until his mid-forties. When he was 44 years old, Don developed some health problems which sidelined him from teaching. While recuperating, he and his wife decided that he should try his hand at film acting. Initially, he had planned on doing only background work to earn a little extra cash, but opportunities came so quickly and easily that he moved into full-fledged acting roles only after a month or so. Don currently lives with his wife, Denise, in Central Georgia, which puts him right smack-dab in the middle of that state's two largest markets for film and television acting: Atlanta and Savannah. When he's not in front of the camera, Don spends his time raising his five sons, four dogs, and one very outnumbered cat. He is also a huge proponent of the American Association of Adaptive Sports Programs (AAASP), an organization of teams for wheelchair-bound student athletes, as he has two sons with Muscular Dystrophy.