WhyParadiseActor Gerald McRaney Still Won't Retire at 77 — Unlike His Wife Delta Burke: 'Just Can’t Do It' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Gerald McRaney.Photo:Cliff Lipson/CBS

Cliff Lipson/CBS

Most men in their late 70s are pretty well into retirement, butParadiseactorGerald McRaney, 77, has no interest.

“People tell me I’m supposed to retire, and I just can’t do it,” McRaney tells PEOPLE. “Somehow I have to stay active. When you have a feeble mind like I do, you have to keep it in shape!”

He’s joking of course, but the longtime actor, who rose to fame in the ’80s, starring on shows likeSimon and SimonandMajor Dad,issomehow busier than ever.

He credits being cast inDeadwoodin 2005 with his career resurgence, and in the last 20 years has starred onThis is Us,House of Cards,NCIS: Los Angeles, andLongmire,among others.

AfterDeadwood, he says, “People began to think, ‘Oh, he can actually act!’ It took things in another direction, which I’m grateful for.”

Now he’s in the Hulu hitParadise, in which he plays Kane Bradford,James Marsden’s dementia-afflicted father. The show just got renewed for season 2.

“Even though my character is not the funnest guy in the world. I’m having fun doing it,” says McRaney. “Anytime you get to work with people likeSterling K. Brown, you jump on it.”

Gerald McRaney and James Marsden in Hulu’s ‘Paradise’.Disney/Brian Roedel

Disney/Brian Roedel

When he’s not on set, McRaney says he’s happy to live a quiet life in Florida withDelta Burke, his wife of 36 years. While the two worked together on Burke’s showDesigning Women,where McRaney had a guest arc, he says their love story actually began before that.

Gerald McRaney and Delta Burke at the Emmys in 2017.Chelsea Lauren/Variety/Penske Media via Getty

Chelsea Lauren/Variety/Penske Media via Getty

“A few months later, the casting director forDesigning Womencalled my agent and asked if I’d be interested in a role. I was about to start another season ofSimon and Simon, so I originally turned it down, but out of curiosity, I asked what the show was. When he saidDesigning Women,I very quickly said, ‘I’ll do it!'”

McRaney recalls that they went on just two dates before he asked her to marry him.

“Originally it was sort of an infatuation, but it turned into something else pretty quickly.”

He says life has been an absolute joy since. “You’ve got to marry the right person,” he says of his relationship with Burke, who stopped acting in the early aughts and has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since.

“She loved the process of acting but not the other stuff that went along with it,” he says of Burke disliking tabloid scrutiny. “But I just can’t manage retirement. My philosophy is, if you stop moving, you truly stop moving.”

Gerald McRaney and Delta Burke in 2020.Albert L. Ortega/Getty

Albert L. Ortega/Getty

Last year, Burke, 68,gave a rare interviewon theGlamorous Trashpodcast with hostChelsea Devantez.

“Hollywood will mess your head up,” she said on the podcast. “I had always thought, ‘I want to be a famous actress.’ I thought that meant that you would be a famous and well-respected actress, but that’s not what it meant. And the moment I became famous, it was like, ‘Oh no, no, no. This is not what I had in mind at all.”

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“Plus, my level of fame has always been ‘Aren’t you that guy in that show . . . ?’” He adds, “Everybody knows my wife’s name. Now people are finally beginning to know mine — after 50-odd years in the business!”

Paradise’s season finale airs Tuesday, March 4, at 12:00 a.m. ET on Hulu.

source: people.com