Stanley Bolander

Stanley 'Stan' Bolander is a fictional character in the American crime drama / police procedural Homicide: Life on the Street. He is portrayed by Ned Beatty and appears in the first three seasons and the spinoff film Homicide: The Movie.

Character overview

Stanley Bolander was born on July 6, 1944 in Hampton, Maryland. Throughout his time on the show, he is partnered with Det. John Munch. It is generally agreed that Bolander is based on Donald Worden, one of the Baltimore Homicide Department detectives featured in the non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Street, on which the series was based.

The other members of the squad affectionately refer to Bolander as "The Big Man", a name also used by Worden's colleagues to refer to him in the book. In the fourth-season episode "Scene of the Crime", Munch explains to Mike Kellerman that the nickname has to do with aspects other than Bolander's weight: "He is in all senses a man of magnitude - enormously fair, tremendously honest, and a whale of a detective."