Skipp Sudduth

Skipp Sudduth
Skipp Sudduth in 2005
Born	Robert Lee Sudduth IV (1956-08-23) August 23, 1956 (age 60) Wareham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Years active	1984-present

Robert Lee Sudduth IV (born August 23, 1956), generally known by his stage name Skipp Sudduth, is an American theater, film, and TV actor. Sudduth is perhaps best known for his role in the movie Ronin and his lead in the TV drama Third Watch.

Born in Wareham, Massachusetts, the son of an engineer and a nurse, Sudduth attended George Washington High School in Danville, Virginia. Sudduth then earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Hampden-Sydney College (H-SC). He is the older brother of actor Kohl Sudduth.

He worked for a year as Director of Alumni Relations at his alma mater in the administration of the college's then-new president Josiah Bunting III, author of The Lionheads and future commandant of Virginia Military Institute in Lexington.

Sudduth then worked for a year as apprentice to the winemaker with poet and vintner Tom O'Grady at Rose Bower Vineyard and Winery. At that time, Rose Bower was only the seventh Estate Vineyard to be licensed in Virginia since the time of Thomas Jefferson. During this period, Sudduth was acting in community and campus theater and writing original comedy and directing and producing the annual comedy review, Parting Shots, at H-SC.

The following year, he returned to school entering the acting program in the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia. At UVA he met and worked with his first and most dynamic acting teacher, Spencer Golub, who would go on to head the Drama Department at Brown University. Golub's emphasis on physically liberating the imagination through extensive guided improvisation became the foundation for Sudduth's approach to acting. Sudduth acted extensively during his time at UVA playing leading roles in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class (opposite Nip/Tuck's Dylan Walsh), and Peter Shaffer's Equus, which featured the first full male and female nudity ever allowed on stage in a production at UVA. Sudduth received his Masters of Fine Arts degree in acting from UVA in 1985.