- published: 03 Oct 2009
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Robert Winthrop Ginty (November 14, 1948 – September 21, 2009) was an American movie actor, producer, scenarist, and director of movies and TV series episodes.
Ginty was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Elsie M. (née O'Hara), a government worker, and Michael Joseph Ginty, a construction worker. Ginty was involved with music from an early age, playing with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker. He studied at Yale and trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio. Ginty worked in the regional theater circuit, and New York theatre Broadway. Harold Prince hired him as his assistant after seeing him perform in The New Hampshire Shakespeare Festival Summerstock Company under the direction of Jon Ogden 1973.
Ginty moved to California in the 1970s, where he found frequent work as a strong-armed player on television action, appearing in different series in the mid-1970s. In 1975, he appeared in the NBC television movie John O'Hara's Gibbsville (also known as The Turning Point of Jim Malloy). In 1976, he attained some popularity after finding a steady role starring with Robert Conrad in Baa Baa Black Sheep, a successful television series about the experiences of United States Marine Corps aviator Pappy Boyington and his squadron of misfits during World War II.