Character actor Leon Rippy didn't get the chance to reprise the role of commanding officer Lieutenant General W. O. West in "Stargate SG-1," which replaced him with Don S. Davis' Lieutenant General George S. Hammond. Davis ran Stargate Command for seven seasons on the spinoff show, but Rippy (who made his first onscreen appearance on the CBS miniseries "Once Upon a Murder" in 1983) was the man in charge when Dr. Jackson discovered how to actually use the portal devices in Roland Emmerich's original movie.
The South Carolina native was already a favorite of Emmerich's when the filmmaker started casting for "Stargate," having appeared in his previous films "Moon 44" and "Universal Soldier." He would go on to appear in a further three Emmerich movies after "Stargate," popping up in "The Patriot," which Emmerich directed, as well as "The Thirteenth Floor" and wacky monster horror "Eight Legged Freaks," which he produced.
Rippy has only appeared in a handful of movies since then (the most notable being Gore Verbinski's "The Lone Ranger") and is better known for his TV work today, having recurred on shows like "Deadwood," "Saving Grace," "Leverage," "Alcatraz" and the Stephen King adaptation "Under the Dome." He reunited with "Stargate" co-star James Spader when he joined the cast of "The Blacklist" in 2016, and, in a more recent credit, he reprised his "Deadwood" role in a TV movie of the same name, released in 2019.
