Who is the actor playing Captain Ahab in the Progressive Insurance commercials?

Wow -- I've never before seen a half-dozen different answers posted, all wrong!

The correct answer is James Grant, the "man of a thousand voices." He may be best known for his solo recording of the Bible's New Testament, portraying all the characters in it. He is a producer and director as well as a performer.

The actor is Grant James. He also played the doctor in Tombstone. I worked with him on a Christian film in Tulsa in 2001.

Leo Gordon,
Big, burly, character actor, one of the toughest of screen heavies, Leo Gordon's powerful physique, combined with his deep, menacing voice, was guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest screen hero. Director Don Siegel, who used Gordon in his prison film Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), once said that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met" - this coming from a man who had directed John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Bette Midler! Siegel wasn't talking about just Gordon's screen presence. Before becoming an actor (he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Gordon served a stretch in San Quentin prison for armed robbery. "Riot in Cell Block 11" was filmed at San Quentin, and many of the guards remembered Gordon from his time there, when he was regarded as a troublemaker. Prison officials would not let Gordon enter and leave the institution with the other cast and crew members; he was only allowed to enter and exit by himself, and was thoroughly searched each time. Contrary to his image, though, Gordon was not just a one-note villain. He did play sympathetic parts on occasion, notably in the western Black Patch (1957) and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder (1962), and turned in first-rate performances, especially in the latter film. Gordon was also a screenwriter, turning out several screenplays for Corman. He wasn't just limited to writing low-budget sci-fi films, either; he penned the screenplay for the WW2 epic Tobruk (1967), writing in a good part for himself as Kruger, a tough sergeant in a platoon of German Jews masquerading as Nazi soldiers to help blow up a German oil storage facility.

he died shortly after this commercial was made of cardiac failure

According to imdb.com (Internet Movie Database), the actor who played Ahab in the Progessive Insurance Commercial was actor Darrell Sandeen. Go to imdb.com and look up Darrell Sandeen, down past the list of the films he has starred in under "Additional Details....Other Works" it credits him with the role of Ahab in the Progressive commercial.

John Russell from Lawman

Almost positive he is Denny Miller.
Miller was on Wagon Train; he was a Tarzan in the movies; he was the comm'l spokesman for the Gorton's Fish commercials as the sea captain.
Darrell Sandeen died in Feb, 2009, so unless these commercials are just now airing, he isn't the one, altho he looks very similar to Denny Miller.
Miller appears at many western film festivals these days. He is very engaging and seems to enjoy the interaction.

(http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/937090)

duplicate

I think the actors name is Darrell Sandeen. I recently re-watched L.A. Confidential with Russell Crowe and Darrell Sandeen had a small part at the beginning of the film as a former police detective named Leland "Buzz" Meeks. His voice sounded right and when I googled him the picture I found looks like "Ahab" from the commercial. Here is the link to that picture. www.musicaltheatreguild.com/members.asp?MemberID=48 or just google Darrell Sandeen and click on Images.

He reminds me of Leo Gordon who always played a tough guy
in movies. He made a lot of westerns. He was also a screen writer. He wrote the screen play for "Tobruk" where he played Sgt. Kruger.

Unfortunately Mr. Gordon died around 2001.

He was a good character actor.

Can't think of his name, but he played a sheriff,
on his own western series in the late 50's-60's.