Dean Cain

Dean George Cain ( Tanaka; born July 31, 1966) is an American actor best known for portraying Superman in the 1990s television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Cain was also the host of Ripley's Believe It or Not! and appeared in the sports drama series Hit the Floor.

Early life Dean George Tanaka was born on July 31, 1966, at Selfridge Air Force Base in Harrison Township, Michigan. His mother, Sharon Thomas, was an actress. Cain is mixed-race; his father, Roger Tanaka, was an American serviceman of Japanese descent, the son of John Megumi Tanaka and Miyoko Tanaka. Cain said that several members of his family were interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho as part of the internment of Japanese Americans. The rest of Cain's ancestry is Welsh, Irish, and French Canadian.

Cain said of his father, whom he never met, "He's not the kind of man I want to be. He was an unfaithful husband and not much of a father." Soon after Dean's birth, his mother, pursuing an acting career, moved him and his older brother Roger to Los Angeles. In 1969, Sharon married the film director Christopher Cain, who adopted her two sons, and Dean and Roger took their stepfather's surname. The couple moved to Malibu, California, and had a daughter, Krisinda. He dated actress Brooke Shields, whom he met in a religion class at the university. Cain graduated in 1988 with a bachelor of arts in history. His senior thesis was "The History and Development of the Functions of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences".

Football At Princeton, Cain starred as a free safety on the football team. He began his career as a cornerback, making his first start during his sophomore year in 1985. In the season opener, he contributed to Princeton's 10–3 victory over Dartmouth by diving for an underthrown pass that would have resulted in a Dartmouth touchdown to record his first interception. Against Cornell in the final game of 1985, he intercepted Marty Stallone thrice to help the Tigers win 33–27. At the end of the season, he was an honorable mention on the All-Ivy League team. Cain switched to safety for 1986, a position he preferred since it had "a lot of action", and led the Tigers in tackles.

As a senior in 1987, he set the NCAA Division I-AA record for most interceptions in a season with 12, surpassing the 11 by Bill McGovern in 1984. His record stood until Rashean Mathis had 14 in 2002. Cain began the year with a two-interception performance against Dartmouth, then had his school-best 13th career pick the following week versus Davidson. He finished his collegiate career with a school-record 22 interceptions in 30 games.

After his graduation in 1988, he signed on as a free agent with the National Football League's Buffalo Bills. He hurt his right knee during training camp, which prevented him from playing in the preseason and he underwent an arthroscopy in late July. Cain was placed on the Bills' injured reserve list for the season. The injury ended his football career prematurely.

Career With little hope of returning to sports, Cain turned to screenwriting and then acting, shooting dozens of commercials, including a volleyball-themed spot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and appearing on such popular television shows as Grapevine, A Different World, and Beverly Hills, 90210.

In 1993, Cain took his biggest role to date, that of Superman in the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. At the height of its popularity, the program drew an average of at least 15 million viewers per episode. The series ran for four seasons, ending in 1997. Cain later made his first return to the Superman franchise with a special guest role in a season seven episode of Smallville, as the immortal Dr. Curtis Knox, a character based upon the DC Comics villain Vandal Savage; Cain returned to the Superman universe again between 2015 and 2017, in a recurring role on Supergirl, as the title character's foster father, Jeremiah Danvers.

In 1998, Cain started the Angry Dragon Entertainment production company, which produced the TBS Superstation television series Ripley's Believe It or Not! He has also starred in several films, including The Broken Hearts Club (2000), Out of Time (2003), and Bailey's Billion$ (2004). In 2004, he played Scott Peterson in the made-for-television movie The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story. He appeared in a recurring role as Casey Manning in the television series Las Vegas. He also had a lead role in the VH1 hit series Hit the Floor, that of Pete Davenport, who becomes the new head coach of a fictional professional basketball team and has an illegitimate daughter who is a cheerleader for his Los Angeles Devils team.

In 2009, Cain was ranked No. 33 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the '90s. Cain was a contestant in an NBC celebrity reality competition series called Stars Earn Stripes. He won four out of six missions on the show, though he came in third in the finals. In 2012, he participated in Fox's dating game show The Choice.

In 2013, Cain hosted a reality show about Bigfoot titled 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, where he offered contestants $10 million to prove the existence of Bigfoot. Cain later appeared in the mid-season premiere of Comic Book Men, appearing at Kevin Smith's Secret Stash where the crew was celebrating 75 years of Superman, where it was claimed that his portrayal of the character helped people care about Superman again. Cain appeared in the film God's Not Dead, in which he plays an arrogant businessman. In 2016, Cain played a guest role on the Netflix original series Lady Dynamite as Graham, the ex-fiancé of Maria Bamford.

Cain is also known for having appeared in 16 Christmas films and several faith-based films.

In 2018, Cain hosted a television infomercial for The National Real Estate Network, an entity which seeks to persuade individuals to attend meetings where they can learn about flipping real estate. In October of that year, it was discovered that Ronnie Mund (Ronnie the Limo Driver), the personal driver and bodyguard of radio DJ Howard Stern, had been using a photoshopped picture of Cain as his own publicity photo. Specifically, Mund's head had been transposed onto the body of Cain. Mund initially denied the photo was altered but eventually acknowledged he had been using the fraudulent photo for over five years. Mund claimed he was unaware the photo was not genuine. Cain co-starred in the 2018 film Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer about the investigation and trial of Kermit Gosnell. He also starred in the 2018 film Andy the Talking Hedgehog.

In 2019, Cain starred alongside Kristy Swanson in the play FBI Lovebirds, which mocked Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two FBI agents who were on the team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

In June 2021, it was announced that he would make his directorial debut with Little Angels and star in it.

Personal life For two years in the 1980s, Cain dated actress Brooke Shields while they were attending Princeton University. In 1992, he dated Gabrielle Reece, a professional beach-volleyball player and model. In 1997, Cain became engaged to Mindy McCready, a singer; they broke up in 1998.

He has a son, Christopher Cain, born June 11, 2000, with one of his ex-girlfriends, Samantha Torres, a Playboy Playmate and model. In 2020, he joined the Pocatello Police Department in Idaho as a reserve police officer. He also subsequently joined the Frederick County, Virginia Sheriff's Office as a reserve deputy sheriff.

Political views

Cain says that he voted for Bill Clinton in both the 1992 and 1996, as well as for Al Gore in 2000, the latter of which he later said he "regretted". In 2016, 2020, and 2024, he endorsed and voted for Donald Trump.

Cain is an advocate for recognition of the Armenian genocide. He participated in the Armenian-American march on the 90th anniversary of the genocide. He is also an executive producer of Architects of Denial, a 2017 historical documentary on the effects of the genocide. In 2018, he was awarded Armenia's Order of Honor by President Serzh Sargsyan for his contributions on spreading awareness.

In 2018, Cain was elected to the board of directors of the National Rifle Association of America. That same year, Cain said that he was once a registered Republican, but later became a registered independent, feeling that the Republican Party did not "fully represent his views".

In 2025, Cain released a video indicating that he had joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and encouraging others to "join the agency as well".

Filmography Film

Television

Video games