Law and Order
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Dann Florek
Dannflorek
Character
Donald Cragen
Date of birth
May 1, 1950
Place of birth
Flat Rock, Michigan
IMDb profile

Dann Florek is an American actor and director. He is known for playing Captain Donald Cragen on Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Organized Crime, acting as a main cast member for the former two.

Captain Donald Cragen was a regular cast member in the first three seasons, after that he was replaced by Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), a move made Dick Wolf to add female characters to the series in order to avoid possible cancellation. Florek made guest appearances in the Law & Order episodes "Bad Faith", "Entitled", and "Fixed"; the latter two appearances were after he had moved over to SVU. He also appeared in the franchise's only movie, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie.

Florek also directed the Law & Order episodes "The Pursuit of Happiness", "Big Bang", and "Bad Faith".

Florek was the the only actor to appear in the pilots of two different Law & Order series: the Law & Order episode "Prescription for Death", and the Special Victims Unit episode "Payback". This changed after the premiere of Law & Order: Organized Crime, "What Happens in Puglia", which had both Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay, though the latter appeared in a guest role; they had both also appeared in the SVU pilot with Florek.

Along with Jerry Orbach, Chris Noth, Alana De La Garza, and Fred Dalton Thompson, he is one of five Law & Order cast members who later joined the regular cast of one of the spin-off series.

At the time of his departure from Special Victims Unit during its fifteenth season, Florek was the longest-serving main cast member of the entire Law & Order franchise; having appeared in over 400 episodes of the original series and SVU combined. This has since been taken over by his SVU co-star Mariska Hargitay, who has played Olivia Benson in over 500 episodes of SVU.

Florek had a recurring role on the drama LA Law and appeared in the reunion movie (with Corbin Bernsen, Bruce Davison, and Harry Hamlin). He also appeared as Mr. Slate in the live action movie version of The Flintstones (with Kyle MacLachlan).



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