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Clark Johnson

Clark Johnson is helming his second feature film with THE SENTINEL. The veteran actor of more than 50 movies, MOWs and series became famous as Detective Meldrick Lewis in the hit TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-99). He also directed five episodes of the series. In THE SENTINEL, Johnson plays the pivotal part of Secret Service agent Charlie Merriweather, whose murder sets in motion the presidential assassination plot investigation. In 2003, he directed the feature film S.W.A.T., an action thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell.

Since 1991, Johnson has amassed 19 directorial credits, including the 2001 HBO movie Boycott, about African Americans' bus boycott during the 1950s civil rights movement. In addition to Homicide: Life on the Street, Johnson has directed episodes of The Shield, Third Watch, The West Wing, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NYPD Blue and The Wire. He first directed in 1991, with an episode of African Skies, a TV series about two teenagers, one black and one white, living in post-apartheid South Africa.

As an actor, Johnson most recently starred as Detective Stephen Tree in the 2005 TV movie Tripping the Wire: A Stephen Tree Mystery, as well as in the dystopian The Limb Salesman (2004), On Their Knees in 2001, and Disappearing Acts, Task Force: Caviar, Deliberate Intent, Fear of Fiction, Virtual Mom, and Homicide: The Movie, all in 2000. Also that year he played a feature role in Clément Virgo's Love Come Down, about two brothers, one black, one white, from a blended family. Johnson had starred in Virgo's earlier films Rude (1995) and The Planet of Junior Brown (1997).

Johnson played football while attending Concordia University in Montreal, before getting into the film business as a driver on The Last Chase in 1981. His first big break came with the CBS series Night Heat in which he played Detective Dave Jefferson from 1986 to 1988. Roles in Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Iron Eagle II (1988), and The Women of Brewster Place (1989) followed. He played the part of J.J. as well as did some of the stunt work on the film Renegades (1989), which starred Kiefer Sutherland.

Johnson's next directorial project will be Killing Floor for Mutual Film Company in 2006.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2006.
Read earlier biographies on this page.

Clark Johnson Facts

OccupationActor, Director
BirthplacePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Height6' 2" (1m88)  How tall is Clark Johnson compared to you?

Selected Filmography

Not available.