Biography
Ken Wahl (born February 14, 1957) is an American retired actor. He is best known for his starring role as undercover FBI agent Vinnie Terranova on the television series Wiseguy (1987–90), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama.
== Early life ==
Wahl is elusive about his personal life, and has given more than one birthdate. A syndicated article in 1988, citing records checked by the CBS publicist for Wahl's television series Wiseguy, gives February 14, 1957, a date that corresponds with the year of his high school graduation: "A call to Bremen High School in the Chicago suburb of Midlothian reveals Wahl graduated from there in June 1975, presumably at age 18." In 2004, Entertainment Weekly noted the confusion surrounding Wahl's date of birth and added that "Ken Wahl is not actually Ken Wahl. At least he wasn't when he was born. While he declines to disclose his birth name, he does say that the moniker he's gone by for the past 25 years is the name of the person who saved his father's life in the Korean War".
According to Wahl, he was born "in a tiny apartment on the south side of Chicago, in the late Fifties". The 1988 NEA article states that Wahl was the ninth of 11 children from a blue-collar German/Italian family and "attended different high schools as the family moved to the [Chicago] suburbs of Midlothian and Worth, Illinois." According to Entertainment Weekly, Wahl played baseball in unspecified venues that might have included youth leagues and high school teams, before crashing a motorcycle and hurting his knee at age 16.
== Career ==
=== Acting ===
After moving to Los Angeles, he worked as an extra on movies, including The Buddy Holly Story (1978). Wahl first gained recognition in 1979 when he was cast in the leading role of director Philip Kaufman's film The Wanderers (1979).
