Don S. Davis

Davis came to acting later than most — theater professor first, screen presence second. That detour through academia and the military gave him something a lot of working actors don't have: genuine gravitas. He didn't need to perform authority. He'd lived it. His early screen work included a memorable supporting role in A League of Their Own (1992) and a recurring part as Major Garland Briggs in Twin Peaks (1990–1991), where his scenes with Kyle MacLachlan's Agent Cooper had a warmth and weight that stood out even in a cast full of memorable performances. That Twin Peaks run — particularly Briggs's quiet, almost mystical monologue about dreaming of Bobby's future — is the kind of thing that sticks with you long after the episode ends. It's the role that should've made him a household name faster than it did. The breakthrough that actually did it was Stargate SG-1, which premiered in 1997 and ran for ten seasons (Wikipedia). As Major General George Hammond, Davis anchored the show's command structure across hundreds of episodes, playing the kind of leader who doesn't grandstand but whose approval you find yourself caring about anyway. The role ran from 1997 to 2007 (TMDB), and it's the one that defined him for an entire generation of genre fans. He also appeared in The Fan (1996) and The 6th Day (2000) during this period, reinforcing a filmography that leaned hard into authority figures — cops, generals, officials — without ever making those characters feel interchangeable. His final film credit, Far Cry, was released in 2008 (TMDB), the year he died. Hard to say if that film would've led somewhere new, but it's a reminder that he was still working, still showing up.