Although best known for his role in the long-running sitcom “Cheers,” Ted Danson has enjoyed a long and remarkably varied career, moving seamlessly between movies and television as well as comedy and drama.

As this year’s recipient of the Carol Burnett Award honoring his distinguished work in comedy, Danson’s versatility can be seen in the 13 Golden Globe nominations he has received over the course of his career, winning twice for “Cheers” as well as in 1985 for the heart-wrenching TV movie “Something About Amelia,” playing a father accused of molesting his teenage daughter.

Few actors can claim a longer roster of successful and acclaimed TV comedies, as Danson followed his 11-season run on “Cheers” with another Globe-nominated role as “Becker,” “The Good Place,” and his recurring appearances as a version of himself on Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

His latest nomination comes for the new Netflix comedy “A Man on the Inside,” a touching look at aging that reunites him with “Good Place” producer Michael Schur, casting Danson as a widower who goes undercover in a retirement community.

Born in San Diego, Danson grew up without a TV set (his parents didn’t approve of it, but later bought one to watch “Cheers”), but after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon University (formerly Carnegie Tech) in Pittsburgh, worked primarily in TV during the ’70s, starting with the daytime drama “Somerset.” He then made his mark in dramatic film roles, including “The Onion Field” and his breakout supporting performance in the twisty 1981 thriller “Body Heat.”
“Cheers,” like its theme song, transformed the actor into a talent where everybody knew his name as Sam Malone, the former baseball player turned bartender. The series about a Boston tavern populated by eccentric characters became a linchpin of NBC’s powerful “Must-See TV” lineup. The final episode, broadcast in 1993, attracted more than 80 million viewers, ranking only behind “M*A*S*H” among series finales.
During those years Danson also appeared in multiple movie roles, including the popular comedy “Three Men and a Baby” and its sequel, with Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg; opposite Jack Lemmon in the drama “Dad,” and in the romantic comedy “Cousins.”
In more recent years Danson has shifted between genres, co-starring in the legal thriller “Damages,” the dark satire “Fargo,” the sitcom “Mr. Mayor” and a run on the procedural “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”
Off screen, Danson’s activism has included Oceana (originally founded as the American Oceans Campaign), an organization committed to preserving the world’s oceans. He met his wife, Mary Steenburgen, on the movie “Pontiac Moon,” and the two have been married since 1995, also teaming on a miniseries version of “Gulliver’s Travels” and the sitcom “Ink.”