Ron Butler

Ronald "Ron/Ronnie" Butler, Jr. is a Bahamian-born American television actor, director and comedian who is best known for portraying Oscar, the clever receptionist, on the television series True Jackson, VP, from 2008 to 2011. He often portrays former President Barack Obama in comedy sketches. He has performed with the Atlantic Theater Company for over 20 years.

For the Jamaican guitarist, see Ron Butler (guitarist).
Ron Butler
Born
Ronald Butler, Jr.

Bahamas
Other namesRonnie Butler
OccupationActor, director, comedian
Years active1991–present

Early life

Butler is originally from the Bahamas. He is named after his father Ronnie Butler, Sr., a calypso singer, songwriter, and recording artist. As a child, Butler sometimes performed with his father.[1] Butler grew up partly in the United States (Washington, D.C., Virginia, and the suburbs of Syracuse, New York) and partly in the Bahamas. He attended high school in the Bahamas and graduated magna cum laude from Trinity International University near Chicago, Illinois, receiving a B.A. in History and Economics in 1985.

Butler worked as an economic consultant for a law firm based in Washington, D.C., before beginning his acting career. While in Washington, Butler studied acting privately with Vera Katz of Howard University and performed in regional theatre around Washington.[1] Later, he studied with David Mamet, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Scott Zigler and Robert Bella of the Atlantic Theater Company.

Career

Butler became a member of the Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company in New York City in 1991, the same year that he appeared in the film Homicide. With Atlantic, he has performed in, among other works, Once in a Lifetime.[2] Among other Off-Broadway and regional theatre roles, he played Bunker and other roles in a revival of Merrily We Roll Along (and on the cast recording) with the York Theatre Company in 1994.[3][4] He then sang in a swing band, The Solicitors, in Europe for some years.[1] In 2007, he played Henry in the concert production of South Pacific at the Hollywood Bowl with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell.[5]

He appeared in the 2004 HBO film Everyday People, as Ron Harding, for which he won an IFP Award for Best Breakout Performance.[1] He also appeared in the films Smother (2007) and Rain (2008). He played Oscar, the clever receptionist for Mad Style, on the television series True Jackson, VP, from 2008 to 2011. He was in the Hollywood Bowl production of South Pacific. He plays Vice Principal Lewis on the web series First Day. He has guest-starred in such TV shows as Without a Trace, Crossing Jordan, Boston Legal, How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs, Ugly Betty, Medium, Dirty Sexy Money and in the first episode of the fourth series of Torchwood entitled "The New World".

Butler also writes and performs sketch comedies. President Barack Obama is one of his most noted characters. In October 2010, he released a YouTube video, as Obama, singing a pastiche of the "Major-General's Song" that affectionately lampooned the President. The video was widely distributed on the internet.[6]

Television and film appearances
Show Role Year
Homicide Rookie 1991
Everyday People Ron Harding 2004
Spartan Headquarters Agent 2004
Boston Legal Dr. Kohler 2005
Summerland Doctor 2005 / 2010
Invasion Coroner, Asst. Coroner Arvin Morton (2 episodes) 2005
Related Front desk clerk (Episode: "Sisters are Forever") 2006
Ugly Betty Reporter #2 (Episode: Queens for a Day) 2006
Without a Trace Mr. Roberts 2006
Crossing Jordan Attorney, lawyer (2 episodes) 2006–2007
Nurses Clerk 2007
Medium Desk Clerk (Episode: "Head Games") 2007
How I Met Your Mother Proctor (Episode: Spoiler Alert) 2007
Smother Friendly Man 2007
Eli Stone Jury Foreman 2008
Rain The Preacher 2008
Dirty Sexy Money Severin (Episode: "The Silence") 2008
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Social Worker (Episode: "The Demon Hand") 2008
True Jackson, VP Oscar (46 episodes) 2008 - 2011
Torchwood: Miracle Day Senior Professor (1st episode) 2011
Dog with a Blog Commercial Director (Episode: "Dog with a Hog") 2012
Parenthood Council Secretary (Episode: "Trouble in Candyland") 2012
Grey's Anatomy Jordan Shouse (Episode: "Things We Said Today") 2013
Bunheads Eric Sinclair (3 episodes) 2012 - 2013
Shameless Advisor (Episode: "Civil Wrongs") 2013
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Scientist (Episode: "Mac Day") 2013
Old Dogs & New Tricks Barack Obama (Episode: "WeHo Horror Story") 2014

Audio Recordings
Year Title Author Role
2015 Til the Well Runs Dry Laura Francis-Sharma Narrator
2015 Grant Park Leonard Pitts Jr. Narrator
2016 Who Was Roberto Clemente? James Buckley, Jr. Narrator
2019 On Time: A Princely Life in Funk Morris Day and David Ritz Narrator

Web
Year Title Role Notes
2011 First Day 2: First Dance Vice Principal Lewis 6 episodes
gollark: I agree entirely.
gollark: Oh, and random sensors and electronic components and whatever.
gollark: Well, don't worry, because you could also hook up a micro-SD card over SPI to some of these to store data, for purposes.
gollark: I suppose you could probably run some sort of accursed HTTP-directly-on-ethernet protocol and use a streaming parser.
gollark: Oh right, just use a big external SRAM chip.

References
  1. Oscar Archived 2011-11-26 at the Wayback Machine, True Jackson, VP, Nickelodeon, accessed December 3, 2011
  2. Ron Butler, Biography for Pilgrim: The Musical, 2006, accessed December 2, 2011
  3. Ron Butler theatre credits at BroadwayWorld.com, accessed December 2, 2011
  4. Ron Butler theatre credits at Playbill.com, accessed December 2, 2011
  5. "Mitchell and McEntire Share Three Enchanted Evenings at the Hollywood Bowl Aug. 3-5", Playbill, August 3, 2007, accessed December 2, 2011
  6. Butler, Ron (11 October 2010). "Obama! A Modern U.S. President (musical spoof)". YouTube. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.