A beloved Disney Channel star from the 2000s was spotted happily running errands in Los Angeles this week at the age of 68.
He started his acting career in the 1980s and starred in projects with Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman and Meg Ryan, among others.
In the 1990s, he starred in a memorable episode of Seinfeld as a brief love interest of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character Elaine Benes.
By the late 2000s, children across America were watching him play the US President in a spin-off of one of the classic Disney Channel hits of the era.
Avid television viewers may also recognize him from his work in series such as Quantum Leap, Xena and 3rc Rock from the Sun.
He was recently spotted stopping at CVS wearing a California casual double denim outfit, accessorized with tortoiseshell sunglasses.
Can you guess who he is?
A beloved Disney Channel star from the 2000s was spotted happily running errands in Los Angeles this week at the age of 68
He started his acting career in the 1980s and starred in projects with Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman and Meg Ryan, among others.
He was recently spotted stopping at CVS wearing a California casual double denim outfit, accessorized with tortoiseshell sunglasses
He is none other than John D’Aquino, who played the crazy US President Richard Martinez in the That’s So Raven spin-off Cory in the House on Disney Channel.
The Daily Mail has contacted D’Aquino’s representatives for comment.
That’s So Raven starred Raven-Symone in the title role and Kyle Massey as her precocious younger brother Cory, who became the focus of the sequel series.
Cory in the House, which ran for two seasons in 2007 and 2008, sees the character transplanted to Washington, DC when his father becomes the president’s chef.
Born in 1958, D’Aquino grew up in the suburbs of New York City, where a family crisis he experienced at the age of eight sparked his interest in acting.
His father suffered a health setback that left him unable to work, and his mother — who had just given birth to her fourth child — “started to plummet” and “cry all the time,” he recalled in a recent podcast interview for Snail magazine.
Hoping to “put a smile on her face,” he would “put on a little show for her” by reenacting scenes he had seen on television.
‘And after a while I started looking into that television box and saying, ‘They’re having a great time there. How do I get in there?” he recalled.
He began his Hollywood career in 1985 with the Western series Wildside, which ran for just six episodes on ABC and featured a pre-fame Meg Ryan.
(from left) Lisa Arch, John D’Aquino, Madison Pettis, Kyle Massey, Rondell Sheridan, Maiara Walsh and Jason Dolley are pictured on Corey in the House
D’Aquino is depicted on Quantum Leap as the loving older brother of a boy with Down syndrome, played by Brad Silverman (left)
D’Aquino first appeared on the big screen in No Way Out, a 1987 neo-noir love triangle starring Kevin Costner, Sean Young and Gene Hackman.
Costner and D’Aquino both played naval officers, with Hackman as the US Secretary of Defense and Young as his philandering wife.
The following year he starred in the cult classic horror film Pumpkinhead, the first directorial effort from Hollywood’s famed special effects maestro Stan Winston, whose work in that field includes The Terminator, Jurassic Park and Aliens.
D’Aquino also worked on popular TV shows of the time such as Magnum, PI; Matlock; 21 Jump Street and – in turn particularly well remembered by fans – Quantum Leap.
Scott Bakula led the cast of Quantum Leap as a scientist who develops the ability to time travel by placing his consciousness into other people’s bodies.
D’Aquino played the loving, protective older brother of a boy with Down syndrome, who becomes one of the vessels for the Bakula character.
“Scott was very good to me on set and a great leader,” D’Aquino recalled The Quantum Leap Podcast. “He worked with everyone. He helped everyone on set. Some days I saw him crossing the wires – the power lines – whatever he could do. He was a great captain of that show.”
In the 1990s, fans could see his performances in series such as Murder, She Wrote; Xena: Warrior Princess; 3rd Rock from the Sun and even Baywatch.
In 1988, he starred in the cult classic horror film Pumpkinhead, the first directorial effort from Hollywood’s famed special effects maestro Stan Winston.
Seinfeld fans will remember him from the 1996 episode The Calzone as Todd, a wheeler dealer who repeatedly finds his way onto dates with Elaine.
Seinfeld fans will remember him from the 1996 episode The Calzone as Todd, a wheeler dealer who repeatedly finds his way onto dates with Elaine without ever asking her out directly.
D’Aquino also starred in season one of the 1990s sci-fi show SeaQuest DSV, alongside the likes of Roy Schneider and Stephanie Beacham.
He won the hearts of the show’s viewers as the mischievous and somewhat arrogant supply and morale officer Lieutenant Benjamin Krieg.
His 21st century credits include guest appearances on TV shows such as JAG, Hannah Montana, Weeds, Monk, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Mentalist, Dexter and SWAT.
Two years ago he appeared as the senator father of a serial killer in Sugar, the drama series starring Colin Farrell as a private detective from Los Angeles.
D’Aquino is now an acting coach, heavily inspired by the work of Robert De Niro, and is also still active on screen, with projects in the pipeline such as a horror fantasy called The Last Time about a cursed hourglass.
