Mark Linn-Baker

Career He developed and performed in a two-man comedy show, The Laundry Hour, with Lewis Black, in the early 1980s.

He appeared in the 1983 Broadway version of the Doonesbury comic strip. He appeared in Laughter on the 23rd Floor in 1993; the 1996 revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; the 1998 Roundabout Theatre Company production of A Flea in Her Ear; the 2003 musical A Year with Frog and Toad; and the 2006 comedy Losing Louie.

His film debut was a small part in Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan. The majority of Linn-Baker's scenes were cut from the film. Three years later, he landed a far more memorable film role, playing Benjy Stone in the 1982 comedy film My Favorite Year alongside Peter O'Toole. In a manner similar to his future role in Perfect Strangers, Linn-Baker played the straight man to O'Toole's outrageous character, Alan Swann.

Having attained success on stage and the big screen, Linn-Baker began to turn his sights toward television. In 1983, he appeared in an unsold detective show pilot called O'Malley. The following year saw a role on the television movie The Ghost Writer, and in the summer series The Comedy Zone. Soon, Linn-Baker was appearing in several high-profile television shows. He guest-starred on a 1984 episode of Miami Vice as Bonzo Barry and portrayed hapless office worker Phil West on a 1985 episode of Moonlighting titled "Atlas Belched". Linn-Baker starred with Charles Kimbrough in the 1985 CBS pilot The Recovery Room, a sitcom about a bar located across from a major city hospital and its inhabitants. Airing as a special that summer, the pilot did not lead to a regular series. Between parts, Linn-Baker also appeared during this time in television commercials pitching products ranging from Kellogg's Nutri-Grain to Kraft's Life Savers.

Linn-Baker starred in the ABC series Perfect Strangers as Larry Appleton, a young man living on his own for the first time in Chicago. Larry's world was disrupted when a distant cousin from the (fictional) Mediterranean island of Mypos, Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot), showed up on his doorstep. Storylines revolved around Larry's attempts to show Balki the ways of American culture, although the neurotic Larry frequently proved to be just as naive as Balki. The series ran for eight seasons. Later, he appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's 1992 film Noises Off.

In 2005, he was a regular cast member on the WB Network sitcom Twins, which was canceled after a single season. He also appeared in the 2010 film How Do You Know as Ron. In 2011, he starred in his sixth Broadway show Relatively Speaking in a one-act play by Woody Allen. He previously appeared opposite Nathan Lane in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 2016 he appeared off-Broadway as Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. As of 2017 he is playing the role of Carlton Miller, aide to Mayor Margaret Dutton (Lorraine Bracco) on the CBS police procedural drama Blue Bloods.

In 2019, he played Mayor George Shinn in the Kennedy Center's production of The Music Man opposite Norm Lewis as Hill and Jessie Mueller as Marian. He reprised his role when he replaced Jefferson Mays in the 2022 Broadway revival, where he performed opposite Hugh Jackman as Hill and Sutton Foster as Marian.

Guest appearances On a 1992 episode of Full House, Linn-Baker played Dick Donaldson, the wealthy, snobbish cousin of Becky Donaldson Katsopolis (Lori Loughlin). In 1997, he guest starred on Family Matters as the abusive boss of Harriette Winslow (Jo Marie Payton). Linn-Baker guested three times on Hangin' with Mr. Cooper as Larry Weeks. Additionally, he appeared on an episode of Law & Order as a strip club owner being extorted by the Mob. In a 1997 episode of Sesame Street, he had a guest role as a veterinarian examining a sick—and invisible—Barkley.

Linn-Baker also directed numerous episodes of Family Matters, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Step By Step and The Trouble with Larry. He appeared as a spokesperson for Peter Pan peanut butter in a series of commercials in the late 1980s and 1990s.

He also appeared in a Christmas episode of Ally McBeal as a man fired for seeing a unicorn.

On a 2003 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, he guested as an insurance investigator named Wally Stevens who displays strong Asperger's Syndrome traits. He gets a degree of empathy from Det. Robert Goren and a number of behind-his-back snickers from Goren's partner Alexandra Eames. His character made a return cameo appearance in the season 6 episode "Endgame", where it was revealed Goren has kept in touch with the character through correspondence. In season 2, episode 14 ("Probability"), the last line spoken by Eames is "I'm sure he'd like a pen pal."

Linn-Baker provided the voice for one of a quartet of aardvarks in the 2002 Sandra Boynton album Philadelphia Chickens. The other three were voiced by Joe Grifasi, Michael Gross, and Devin McEwan.

He joined his friend, fellow Yale Drama School graduate and former sidekick Lewis Black, on the audiobook version of Black's second book Me of Little Faith where he and Black recreate The Laundry Hour, an act they did in New York City in the early 1980s. He guest-starred in several episodes of the children's TV show The Electric Company in February–March 2009 as "Uncle Sigmund Scrambler".

In 2009, he appeared in an episode of the American version of Life on Mars, playing a character who collected women's underwear that he later used for masturbation. In 2010, he appeared in an episode of Law & Order, "The Taxman Cometh", as Dr. Vincent Balicheck, a physician who used controversial therapies on cancer patients which resulted in their deaths.

Linn-Baker and Perfect Strangers are referenced in the HBO TV series The Leftovers, which takes place after a fictional global event called the Sudden Departure, the inexplicable, simultaneous disappearance of 140 million people, 2% of the world's population. Within the show, the entire cast of Perfect Strangers has departed, except for Linn-Baker, who has faked his own departure and escaped to Mexico. Linn-Baker appears, as a fictional version of himself, in the episodes "Axis Mundi" and "Don't Be Ridiculous".

In 2009, he had a recurring guest-starring role in the revival of The Electric Company, and in 2017, he started a recurring role on the CBS drama Blue Bloods as Deputy NYC mayor Carlton Miller. In 2019, he appeared as Josh's father Dave in the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt episode "Kimmy is in a Love Square!" Also in 2019, he appeared in Season 6 (Episode 7) of The Blacklist as entomologist Dr. Jonathan Nikkila.

Personal life In 1995, Linn-Baker married Adrianne Lobel, the daughter of children's book author Arnold Lobel, best known for his Frog and Toad series. They divorced after having one daughter. Linn-Baker helped adapt his father-in-law's stories into the Tony-nominated Broadway musical A Year with Frog and Toad, in which Linn-Baker played Toad and Jay Goede played Frog. On December 29, 2012, Linn-Baker married actress Christa Justus. 1978 All's Well That Ends Well Bertram New York Shakespeare Festival 1979 Othello Othello's orderly New York Shakespeare Festival 1980 Alice in Concert performer The Public Theater 1981 The Laundry Hour performer The Public Theater 1982 Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong performer Astor Place Theater 1982 The Death of von Richthofen as Witnessed From Earth William Evans The Public Theater 1982 Waiting for Godot Vladimir American Repertory Theater 1983 Doonesbury Mark Biltmore Theater Broadway debut 1984 The Miss Firecracker Contest Delmount Williams Manhattan Theater Club 1990 Signature Maxwell T-Thorp New York Stage and Film 1993 Face Value Bernard Sugarman Cort Theatre 1993 Laughter on the 23rd Floor Val Richard Rodgers Theater 1996 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Hysterium St. James Theater 1998 A Flea in Her Ear Victor Chandebise, Dodo Laura Pels Theater 1999 As You Like It Touchstone Williamstown Theatre Festival 1999 Chesapeake Kerr Second Stage Theater Drama Desk Award nomination 2002 The Pajama Game Hines New York City Center 2002 A Year with Frog and Toad Toad Children's Theatre Company 2003 A Year with Frog and Toad Toad Cort Theater 2006 Losing Louie Tony Biltmore Theater 2007 Romantic Poetry Jilly Brilla, Carl Wartel Theater 2008 Almost an Evening In Waiting: McMartin In Debate: God Who Loves Atlantic Stage 2 2008 Romantic Poetry Carl New York City Center 2011 One Slight Hitch Doc Coleman Williamstown Theatre Festival 2011 Relatively Speaking In Honeymoon Motel: Sam Roth Brooks Atkinson Theater 2012 One Slight Hitch Doc George Street Playhouse 2014 You Can't Take It With You Paul Sycamore Longacre Theater 2015 On the Twentieth Century Oliver Webb American Airlines Theatre 2016 The School for Scandal Sir Peter Teazle Lucille Lortel Theatre 2016 The Music Man Mayor Shinn The Muny 2017 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Senex The Muny 2018 Good For Otto Timothy Signature Theatre Company 2019 The Music Man Mayor Shinn Kennedy Center 2019 Fern Hill Billy 59E59 Theaters 2022 The Music Man Mayor Shinn Winter Garden Theatre 2025 The Imaginary Invalid Argan New World Stages As director

As author The Laundry Hour (1981) - co-authored with Lewis Black, William Peters and Paul Schierhorn

Audiobooks Arthur's Mystery Envelope