He may be most familiar as Greg Sumner in the nighttime soap, Knot’s Landing, but before that he starred in the TV docudrama about the Cuban missile crisis, The Missiles of October (1974). He can claim a close tie to another U.S. president through his father, who had been a chauffeur for Governor Franklin Roosevelt. Martin Sheen, who would also appear as John F. Kennedy in another film (see below), played Robert Kennedy in this same production. Devane wasn’t through dramatizing Kennedy family members, however. He played John “Black Jack” Bouvier, Jacqueline Kennedy’s father, in a TV miniseries, A Woman Named Jackie (1991).
The late Robert Kennedy was given a posthumous writing credit for the drama as it was based on his book, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The production won critical acclaim and an Emmy for technical direction.