Who Played Denny Duquette On Grey's Anatomy?

Over the past 18 years, many memorable patients have come and gone on "Grey's Anatomy," but one holds a special place in fans' hearts. Midway through the second season of the ABC medical drama, fans met Denny Duquette, a heart patient with a big wallet and an eye for surgical intern Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl). 

Fans followed Denny's bedside romance with Izzie as well as his fast pass to the top of the heart transplant list after she cut his LVAD wire to make him sicker, but in the Season 2 finale, he suffered a stroke and died hours after proposing to his love during Seattle Grace Hospital's "prom night." Thanks to the magic of TV — and some pretty heavy hallucinations — a dead Denny made cameos in Seasons 3 and 5, giving him a total of 23 appearances on the show.

But who played Seattle Grace's most dashing deathbed patient? That would be actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a guy so attached to his character that he full-on begged to stay on the show. In a 2021 interview on First We Feast's "Hot Ones" podcast Morgan said he asked showrunner Shonda Rhimes not to kill off his character. "That's the one time that I saw my death coming and was trying everything I could do to get out of that death," he revealed. "I was like, 'Please don't kill me.' ... I begged her."

Jeffrey Dean Morgan appeared in his final "Grey's Anatomy" episode in 2009, but his career lived on. He logged a long list of acting credits on shows such as "Supernatural" and "The Good Wife" before scoring a main role as Negan Smith on the hit AMC series "The Walking Dead" in 2016.

And just like his character on "Grey's Anatomy," Morgan's character made a surprise return to TV. Months after "The Walking Dead" ended its 11-season run, Morgan starred in a six-episode spinoff, "The Walking Dead: Dead City." But he almost turned it down. "If you had told me that a year ago that I would be doing it, I would've said, 'There's no way. I'm going to end this and walk away,'" Morgan admitted to Entertainment Weekly in 2022. "But the story was so good and so worth telling that it simply came down to, I couldn't say no. And I felt invigorated and wanted to continue it."

While his days as Denny Duquette are long done, Morgan does have a personal connection to "Grey's." The actor is married to fellow TV star Hilarie Burton. Burton appeared on three episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" in 2013 playing plastic surgeon Dr. Lauren Boswell.

During a 2018 appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," Morgan revealed that he helped deliver the two children he shares with Burton. The family lives on a farm update New York where they raise donkeys, alpacas, and other animals. On the side, the actor co-owns a candy store called Samuel's Sweet Shop with celebrity pal Paul Rudd and others.