‘Seinfeld’ Star John O’Hurley Hopes Watergate Doc Reshapes Nixon’s Legacy

John O’Hurley, known for Seinfeld and his television hosting gigs, is involved in a very different project as he helps explore the circumstances surrounding former President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

Writer-director George Bugatti’s documentary feature Watergate’s Secrets and Betrayals is set for release on Aug. 8, which marks the 50th anniversary of Nixon stepping down from office in 1974. Aiming to shed light on the Watergate investigation, the movie includes archival footage, new interviews and dramatized scenes. Central to the film is the research done by Geoff Shepard, who was the deputy counsel for the Watergate defense team and has more recently analyzed the records of the case’s special prosecutor.

O’Hurley appears in the film and serves as the project’s narrator. “Until now, the story of Watergate stood unchallenged, and yet a groundbreaking revelation is beginning to reshape the paradigm,” he says in the trailer that is exclusive to The Hollywood Reporter.

The star recalls that the Watergate scandal unfolded just after he had graduated from high school. “It was such a one-sided slant to the entire two-year process that Nixon almost became a self-parody, and everything that he did was easily debunked,” O’Hurley tells THR. “So I just grew up and dismissed it, as pretty much all of America did. And then when George came to me, and I met Geoff and sat down with him, we talked about all of this information that was actually sitting there on the Library of Congress and accessible to anybody.”

The star continues, “Geoff had assembled quite a compelling case that, first off, Nixon simply didn’t have his day in court. And there were some subsequent elements to the entire Watergate experience that were a little bit on the shifty side, as Washington, D.C., has a tendency to be. So it was not a black-and-white story as we all have been kind of led to believe, and when he resigned, it was really at a time when a lot of other things were going on that should have been equally investigated on the other side. In many respects, he was steamrolled out of office.”

Among those interviewed in the film are Rufus Edmisten, who served as deputy chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, and Dwight Chapin, who was the deputy assistant to Nixon. Also weighing in are judges Andrew Napolitano, Laurence Silberman, and Paul Diamond, along with law professor Stephen Saltzburg.

O’Hurley is best known for recurring as Elaine’s eccentric boss J. Peterman on Seinfeld and for hosting such programs as Family Feud and the National Dog Show, but he says he also has a strong interest in politics.

“I’m an intelligent human being, and more importantly, I’m a father,” he explains. “I have to look down the road and make sure that I clear a path for my son that is navigable in this absolutely wacko world that we live in.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter, THR