Stanley Bolander

Stan Bolander
Det. Stanley 'Stan' Bolander
First appearance	January 31, 1993 (1x01, "Gone for Goode")
Last appearance	May 5, 1995 (3x20, "The Gas Man)" (HLOTS) February 13, 2000 Homicide: The Movie
Created by	Tom Fontana
Portrayed by	Ned Beatty
Information
Nickname(s)	(The) Big Man
Gender	Male
Occupation	Retired Homicide Detective (formerly)
Title	Detective
Spouse(s)	Margie Bolander (divorced)

Stanley 'Stan' Bolander is a fictional character in the American crime drama / police procedural Homicide: Life on the Street. He is portrayed by Ned Beatty and appears in the first three seasons and the spinoff film Homicide: The Movie.

Stanley Bolander was born on July 6, 1944 in North Hampden, Baltimore, Maryland. Throughout his time on the show, he is partnered with Det. John Munch. It is generally agreed that Bolander is based on Donald Worden, one of the Baltimore Homicide Department detectives featured in the non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Street, on which the series was based.

The other members of the squad affectionately refer to Bolander as "The Big Man", a name also used by Worden's colleagues to refer to him in the book. In the fourth-season episode "Scene of the Crime", Munch explains to Mike Kellerman that the nickname has to do with aspects other than Bolander's weight: "He is in all senses a man of magnitude - enormously fair, tremendously honest, and a whale of a detective."

Bolander has been a homicide detective since 1968 - indeed, he is the most experienced (and almost certainly, the oldest) officer in Lt. Al Giardello's homicide squad. He is a gruff and taciturn man, quick to irritation and not particularly fond of expressing his feelings. This masks a certain degree of insecurity and vulnerability, however; at the beginning of the show, he had recently divorced from his wife and was still coming to terms with this change in his life, especially as his wife asked for the divorce on the advice of a therapist they were seeing, neither having consulted with him first.

He is also artistic and gentle, displaying a fondness and ability for the cello. In the infrequent occasions after his divorce when he is in love, he displays a remarkable joy and lust for life that not even the investigation into a suicide can dampen. His age and marital status would also seem to allow him to identify with his lieutenant more than the other, younger members of the squad, and vice versa. Despite his often bad tempered persona, Bolander has also expressed a certain fondness for children and seems to regret not having any of his own.