Dwight Schultz
William "Dwight" Schultz is an American stage, television, and film actor. He was born and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a graduate of Calvert Hall College High School (where he joined the drama club) in Townson, Maryland, and an alumnus of Towson University (where he earned a B.A. in Theater Arts). Dwight is an only child. His father was a postman and his mother was a telephone operator.
As a child, Dwight loved everything that had something to do with audio. He has always been fascinated by voices and imitated many of his television heroes. Dwight was always glued to the television growing up, and still jokes that you could see a worn out spot in the carpet where he used to sit. He also loved to go to the movies with his parents. At the age of thirteen he was able to build speaker sets and he knew so much about audio systems that in later life -- as a beginning actor -- he was able to give advice to other people as to which audio system they should buy. This enabled him to earn some extra money. To this day, Dwight still loves audio and video -- he's a real video/audiophile. He loves to listen to symphonies and jazz, preferably on vinyl through Klipsch loudspeakers, because they are the best, according to Dwight.
From the age of nineteen, Dwight was already a professional actor. In 1969 he and two friends formed the Baltimore Theatre Ensemble. The Baltimore Theater Ensemble was working as artists-in-residence with the theater arts department of Townson State University, performing and assisting in offering workshops and giving students the opportunity to get experience in theater.
After graduation, Dwight worked in theatres for about 15 years. In the early seventies he became a member of Baltimore 's Center Stage Company. Over the next five years he perfected his craft in a variety of roles in regional theaters, from New Jersey to Missouri and even a fateful stint as a member of the Alley Theatre Company in Houston Texas. He displayed an extraordinary devotion to his craft. For a year he spent every night listening to Shakespeares 'Othello' just to learn how to speak.
When he left for New York to find work, it wasn't easy to get an acting job, so he worked with New York 's pest control, and as a waiter. He slept in the cheapest rooms and it was hard for him to earn money. Finally, in 1978 he landed the lead in "The Water Engine" for producer Joseph Papp's Public Theatre. The off-Broadway production was a hit and it was moved to the Plymouth Theatre, marking Dwight's Broadway debut.
After this success his career soared. He won the coveted Drama-Logue Award in 1980 for the revival of "Crucifer of Blood," a Sherlock Holmes drama, co-starring Glenn Close, in which he portrayed Major Alistair Ross. All tolled, Dwight appeared in 40 widely different plays between 1978 and 1989, among them "Peer Gynt," "Night and Day," "Camino Real," "Hay Fever" and "Night of the Iguana."
In the early eighties, he decided to see if he could get some screen parts. By 1981, he had garnered a number of small parts in television movies and guest spots on Hill Street Blues and CHiPs. That year also marked his feature film debut in The Fan in the minor role of the unnamed director.
Dwight won his first leading role in the 1982 suspense film Alone in the Dark, with Jack Palance and Martin Landau.
Dwight met his wife, former actress Wendy Fulton, in 1982 during a blind date. Dwight had been invited for dinner by a friend and because his friend had a girlfriend and Dwight was still single, his friend decided to ask his girlfriend to bring a friend of hers along so Dwight had a date for that evening. Dwight says it was love at first sight. In 1983 Dwight and Wendy married in secret. They got married at Unitarian Church in York, near Stewartstown close to Wendy's hometown in Pennsylvania. Dwight and Wendy have one child, a daughter, named Ava.
It was shortly after meeting Wendy that he auditioned for and won the role of Murdock in The A-Team. During the shooting of the pilot the producers felt that his character would be too over-the-top for viewers and planned to drop the character after his debut. But early test screenings of the show indicated that he was popular with the audience. As a result, Murdock was effectively "written back in" to the series.
Since the end of The A-Team series, Dwight has appeared in a number of movies, including The Fan, The Long Walk Home (with Whoopi Goldberg),
and Fat Man and Little Boy . During the filming of Fat Man and Little Boy he was frequently at odds with co-star Paul Newman. Newman was a liberal Democrat who favored nuclear disarmament, while Dwight is a conservative Republican, who opposed disarming.During the filming of The Long Walk Home, Dwight told Whoopi (who had played the role of Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation - STNG) how he had loved Star Trek ever since he was a child. He had always watched the original series on television and later also the spin off, Star Trek: Next Generation. Unbeknownst to Dwight, Whoopi subsequently approached the producers of STNG, explaining that Dwight loved the series and she felt he deserved a part in it because during the filming of The Long Walk Home she observed what a brilliant actor he was. Dwight had no idea that Whoopi had whispered his name into the producers ears until the moment the phone rang and they told him they had written a guest role especially for him. He was thrilled with the part of Lt. Reginald Barclay. His role was so successful that he became a returning guest on the series. Dwight was even asked to play the role of Barclay in Star Trek Voyager and in the movie Star Trek First Contact.
Since the late nineties, Dwight has kept busy mostly with voiceoverwork. He gives cartoon figures and computer heroes (or bad guys) a voice in computer games. He also visits conventions on a regular basis and talks about his career.
The preparatory school Dwight attended was Catholic. He was married in a Unitarian church. And that is all we know of anything, spiritually speaking, in Dwight's life. But we DO know that he -- just as each one of us -- needs a personal relationship with Jesus Christ who came to redeem him from an eternity separated from the God who loves him. Will you please pray for Dwight -- and Wendy and Ava -- that God will bring people into their lives and draw them to Himself that they can see their need to turn to God's Son for salvation? God bless you for it.
--Heidi