Scott Bakula has played a time-traveling hero in “Quantum Leap,” Captain Jonathan Archer in “Star Trek: Enterprise,” and Special Agent in Charge on “NCIS: New Orleans,” but his best role is as one of Hollywood’s most revered, unappreciated talents over the past 30 years. Bakula is known for playing powerful, empathic heroes with a sparkle in their eye with humor, charm, and melancholy.
As Sam Beckett on “Leap,” the multi-talented actor played a different persona each week, solving issues and righting wrongs before leaping into another life to do it again. The charming sci-fi series built a loyal following and showcased Bakula’s many talents week after week.
Bakula is many things, but he’s not Dracula. Scott Bakula may be on TV’s Mount Rushmore of powerful, sensitive leading men, but what do you truly know about him? View the hidden truth underneath.
Like Tom Cruise’s center tooth or Megan Fox’s toe thumb, some stars have physical quirks that aren’t instantly noticeable yet can’t be unseen. Scott Bakula’s too.
He’s recognized for his rugged, old-fashioned good looks, mop-ish hair, and a white streak above his brow before he went grey.
In a 2010 Vulture interview to promote “Men Of A Certain Age,” Bakula said he had the streak since he was four years old and had a moniker because of it.
“I had a white stripe in my hair in front,” he said. “I had ‘grandpa’ and skunk and stinky as well as Dracula references.”
He claims the white streak helped, despite the nasty nicknames.
“I suffered,” he said in 2002. However, it strengthened me. It gave Bakula a distinctive look that fans have grown to love. His white streak has a social media page.
Scott Bakula’s extensive television and film career weren’t always planned. “I never wanted to be on TV or in a movie,” he claimed in 2008. “Theater’s my first love.”
Bakula, from St. Louis, traveled to New York at 22 to pursue a theater career. He played Joe DiMaggio in “Marilyn: An American Fable” seven years later. “Three Guys Naked From The Waist Down” and “Nightclub Confidential” in Los Angeles and Boston followed. “Romance/Romance,” a 1988 Broadway musical, starring him as Alfred, a rich playboy who falls in love while pretending to be a poet.
Bakula’s theatrical prowess earned him Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center Honors, and Hollywood Bowl engagements. In 1997 Warner Bros.’ animated musical “Cats Don’t Dance,” he voiced Danny the Cat. Bakula appeared in the 2007 Los Angeles musical “No Strings!”
Bakula became a theater celebrity in the mid-1980s with “Marilyn: An American Fable,” “Three Naked Guys,” and “Nightclub Confidential,” which co-starred his wife, Krista Neumann. Maggie Henderson, his agent, suggested Bakula audition for television.
I got a little momentum, and then I, fortunately, did a Disney Sunday Night ABC movie that was coming out in the winter. “It was time to go,” he told “Sciography: Quantum Leap” in 2000. “My concert was a hit here. It earned me a lot of attention out here, so I joined “Designing Women” in the beginning and did the pilot and a handful of regular roles. But I waited and waited to come out, and I just got this show.”
He was cast in the short-lived TV adaptation of Michael Keaton’s “Gung Ho” on New Year’s Day 1986 in Los Angeles. In “Romance/Romance,” he was nominated for a Tony. After returning to Los Angeles, he landed the role that would make him famous: Sam Beckett in “Quantum Leap.”
During the writers’ strike, he returned to New York and did a Broadway musical. “I returned with ‘Quantum’. So I thought the business would find me.”
Due to his dislike of self-promotion, Scott Bakula rarely appears in paparazzi images, the back pages, or the gossip section.
“The world now is filled with people who want to be famous,” he observed in 2017. “That’s good, but I’ve never cared.”
Bakula is a reserved actor who doesn’t talk about his personal life in interviews.
“For a hundred million years People Magazine wanted to do interviews with me at my home,” he said when promoting “NCIS: New Orleans” in 2016. “Where do you stop?”
Scott Bakula had two children with Neumann before divorcing in 1995 and marrying actress Chelsea Field in 2009. His daughter Chelsy, who dated Prince Harry, is trying to become an actor.
Bakula jokes that he isn’t a greater star since he doesn’t promote himself. “That’s my professional problem!”
Bakula traveled to Los Angeles with his then-wife and daughter to pursue a television career. Although “Quantum Leap” was a career-making job, acting in an hourlong weekly drama is time-consuming, so he was away from home for most of the five-year run.
Bakula acknowledges that the event harmed his marriage and kids. In 2015, he regretted missing his daughter’s “formative years” and vowed to prioritize. “It took me a while to figure out my feelings about our relationship,” he said. “It takes energy and attention to stay present in a marriage.”
Bakula avoided repeating his prior mistakes during lengthy negotiations to join “Star Trek: Enterprise” in 2001.
“I had it placed in my contract that I would be done every Wednesday at six so I could be home for supper,” Bakula, who was married to Field, recalls. Coached my sons’ soccer and baseball teams.
“Playgirl” features Scott Bakula, who has starred in famous TV shows.
“Quantum Leap” viewers will recall that he sometimes took off his shirt once per episode, but the legendary beefcake magazine went far further.
Bakula has been proud of his LGBTQ fanbase since his March 1995 “Playgirl” cover. He played a gay Hollywood producer in Steven Soderbergh’s 2013 Liberace film “Behind the Candelabra,” introducing Matt Damon’s character to Liberace (Michael Douglas), with whom he had a long relationship. “Looking,” an HBO LGBT series, cast Bakula as Lynn a year later.
Bakula discussed LGBTQ support in a 2014 “Out Magazine” interview. I’ve always had gay fans. “Thanks,” he said. I’m glad for my career, which has allowed me to do many things and reach many groups. We think we’re universal and can move freely and be accepted as performers.”
Bakula’s “Quantum Leap” character Sam Beckett was more than a hero; he was a realistic everyman driven by morality. Bakula appears to be a real-life Sam Beckett.
Bakula, one of Hollywood’s nicest people, has only been criticized for his thick New Orleans accent on “NCIS.” “If the worst thing that can be said about you in Hollywood circles is how awful an accent you can whip up, then you must be doing something well,” claimed one critique.
Bakula told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2014 that he was writing a New Orleans native without an accent. “We’re tweaking my voice.”
In a 2021 visit on pal Bob Saget’s podcast “Here For You,” the two recalled an event on the set of the legendary “Leap” episode “Stand-Up” (Season 4, Episode 21), in which Saget guest starred. Saget claims that Bakula may have saved a co-life star by shouting “cut” during a scene when he saw a knife blade protruding from a set part that an actor could have tripped on. Bakula fixed things like his character Sam Beckett.
It’s nice to think wonderful things happen to good people, but Scott Bakula hasn’t always been successful in his roles.
Bakula auditioned for “Saturday Night Live” but bombed so terribly that he kept it a secret for years.
After “Star Trek” stardom in the late ’60s, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both had infamous, half-baked music careers. Bakula, unlike Kirk and Spock, was a gifted singer, songwriter, and theatrical actor before Hollywood. Bakula calls music, like theater, his “first love” and plays piano and sings regularly.
In 2008, Bakula played the piano and sang “Once Upon a Time” to Candice Bergen in an episode of “Boston Legal” with William Shatner. He sang, danced, and played piano in multiple “Quantum Leap” episodes, including creating and performing all the songs in “Piano Man” (Season 3, Episode 15). Dwayne Pride plays piano on “NCIS: New Orleans” occasionally.
Because of my lifelong love of music, filming “NCIS” at jazz’s birthplace was thrilling. “As a musician, to be in the area where jazz was founded is astounding all the time,” he said in 2020. Despite his talent, Bakula says he needs more piano practice.
“I’m not as good as I’d want,” he joked in 2020. “I’m a hack. New Orleans especially.”
The multi-talented actor has done much in his decades-long career, but a long-running success eluded him until recently.
“Quantum Leap” ran for nearly five years, but NBC kept it on the air largely because it believed in it, even showing it every night for a week in primetime twice. After its first season, “Star Trek: Enterprise” struggled to find viewers and was perpetually on the verge of cancellation. By 2005, Bakula was starring in two popular programs that had ended with 97 episodes (“Leap”) and 98 episodes (“Bakula”) (“Enterprise”).
When Bakula joined “NCIS: New Orleans” in 2014, the procedural drama finally propelled him over the 100-episode mark, but not without some tense moments for the series actor and producer.
Bakula doubted he’d survive the show’s 100th episode. He revealed in 2018 that he was superstitious about reaching 100. Of course, two days before we almost finished our 100th episode, Katrina was heading up the Gulf and headed for New Orleans. “This is crazy, it’s going to knock down the studio, we’re going to have floods, and I’m still not going to get to a hundred!”
Bakula’s worry proved unfounded, as he doubled his episode totals. The 155-episode “NCIS: New Orleans” ended in May 2021.
Scott Bakula starred in several fan-favorite franchises. Bakula respects his followers’ tradition of embracing him without surrounding him.
Bakula attends “Star Trek” and “Quantum Leap” events, appears in documentaries about his series, and meets his fans. “Having been in the sci-fi industry for many years now, I am never shocked that people have such emotional relationships with these shows,” he stated in a 2012 interview. “Immersion is part of being a fan. People exhibit their love in many ways.”
Bakula told Bob Saget on his podcast in 2021 that he was “very much” a Trekkie before his Roddenberry role.
He understands and appreciates his fans’ fanaticism because he was a fan growing up.
Since Season 3, Chelsea Field has played Rita Devereaux, Dwayne Pride’s old acquaintance in New Orleans. Their professional relationship became more personal when she appeared, and their chemistry may be because the actress is Bakula’s wife.
Bakula’s work/life balance improved in 2020 when Fields joined the main cast.
At the start of 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic began, threatening Bakula’s ability to film the last season in New Orleans. Fields were able to move to be with her boyfriend once the producers promoted her to a main cast member.
On Rachael Ray in 2018, Bakula said, “I adore working with her.” “She makes me a better actress because she works more intensely and thoroughly than I do… when you’re working with your wife, it’s fairly great.”
The series and Bakula and Field ended happily a year later. In May 2021, “NCIS: New Orleans” ended with Dwayne Pride and Rita Devereaux marrying, with Bakula and Field saying “I Do” again. We watched it this time.
