John Forsythe was born in 1918. He was the oldest of three children in his family. He was raised in the Brooklyn, New York area and his father worked on Wall Street.

John Forsythe was educated locally at Abraham Lincoln High School. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When he was eighteen years old, he decided to use his love of baseball and secure a position as a sports announcer at the Brooklyn Ebbets Field Stadium.

Forsythe married in 1939. His marriage to actress Parker MacCormick would only last a couple of years. The couple had a son and Forsythe is believed to have maintained a relationship with him.

In 1943, marriage knocked on his door a second time and John married Julie Warren. The couple had two daughters but Julie died in 1994. Never one to stay single, John married again in 2002. This time, he chose to marry a much younger woman. His wife today is Nicole Carter and she is twenty-years younger than Forsythe.

John's acting career has been much like his relationships with women. While he doesn't have an ultra-long list of credits to his name, his relationships with producers and fellow actors ensured he was able to work steadily and with success evident.

John Forsythe played on the 50s sitcom Bachelor Father. He went on to play the voice of Charlie on Charlie's Angels and played the role from 1976 until 1981. In 1981, Forsythe landed another Aaron Spelling show when he was cast in the role of Blake Carrington for Dynasty. From 1981 until 1989, the show aired with great success similar to that of Dallas and Knot's Landing.

John Forsythe is considered at the top of his game as an actor. However, in recent years, he has been plagued by some health problems including an October 2006 visit to the hospital where he was reportedly there for complications related to cancer.