Ken Jenkins

Jenkins spent three decades as the kind of actor who shows up in everything without anyone quite knowing his name. He played Hamlet and Cyrano de Bergerac on stage, worked his way through prestige TV and character parts in films like The Abyss and Matewan. By the time Scrubs cast him as Dr. Bob Kelso in 2001, he was 61. That's what made Kelso work: Jenkins knew exactly how to play institutional authority with a side of contempt, because he'd spent decades earning the right to.

He's 85 and largely retired. The Scrubs revival launched without him, and showrunner Aseem Batra confirmed that filming in Vancouver rather than Los Angeles complicated any return. The revival quietly resolved his absence by naming a hospital wing after Dr. Kelso, suggesting the character died off-screen. His last screen credit was a 2019 film called Girls Weekend. For someone who spent nine seasons being television's most reliably unpleasant boss, the exit has been quiet.

Jenkins is married to Katharine Houghton, who is Katharine Hepburn's niece. He co-founded the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1969 and served as its Associate Artistic Director for three years, at a time when the theater was developing playwrights like Beth Henley and Marsha Norman. He plays acoustic guitar, which Scrubs worked into a couple of episodes. Cast and crew reportedly called him one of the warmest people on set, which makes nine seasons of Dr. Kelso feel like the world's longest con.