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born 1963 · born and raised in South Bend
The fame: Dean Norris played Hank Schrader, the DEA agent brother-in-law at the moral center of Breaking Bad (2008–2013), across the series' run — returning for Better Call Saul in 2020 — and James "Big Jim" Rennie, the villain of Under the Dome (2013–2015). Between those poles sits one of the busiest character-actor careers in American television and film: hundreds of episodes and features, from Total Recall and Terminator 2 to a long run of authority figures played with a workingman's grain.
The tie, exactly: Born and raised, at full strength. Norris was born in South Bend on April 8, 1963, of Hungarian descent — his grandfather came from Tiszadob — in a family where his father, Jack, owned a furniture store. He went through South Bend's schools and graduated from Clay High School in 1981 as class valedictorian; as a student he was already on local television, in the cast of WNDU-TV's Beyond Our Control. He was the first in his family to attend college — Harvard — and trained afterward at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The South Bend chapter is the whole childhood and schooling, and it is documented at every step.
A conflict in the record: Reference works have given his birth year as 1961 as well as 1963; 1963 is the current standard and is the year consistent with the Clay High School class of 1981, and it is the year printed here.
Sources:
- Standard biographical record of Norris — the South Bend birth (April 8, 1963), the furniture-store family, Clay High School valedictorian (1981), Beyond Our Control, Harvard and RADA.
- Series records — Breaking Bad (2008–2013) and Better Call Saul (2020); Under the Dome (2013–2015).