Mandy Patinkin to Play an Organ Donor in New CBS Series Three Rivers

Two years after his sudden departure from the CBS drama Criminal Minds, Tony Award winner Mandy Patinkin will play an organ donor on a forthcoming episode of the network’s new medical series Three Rivers, according to EW.com. Patinkin, himself the recipient of a double corneal transplant, will guest star an ALS patient who asks to be removed from life support so that his organs can save others.

Patinkin headlined Criminal Minds as profiler Jason Gideon for two seasons but left abruptly before the third season began filming in 2007. He was replaced by another Tony winner, Joe Mantegna, and the series is still running. In 1996, Patinkin abruptly quit another CBS drama, Chicago Hope, in which he played surgeon Jeffrey Geiger, citing a desire to be closer to his New York City-based family, but returned for a final season before the show ended in 2000. He headlined the cable series Dead Like Me in 2003-2004.

Since leaving Criminal Minds, Patinkin has played Prospero in CSC’s off-Broadway production of The Tempest and appeared in concerts both as a solo performer and with Patti LuPone. Beginning January 29, 2010, he will star in Compulsion, a new play about a man obsessed with Anne Frank’s diary, at Yale Repertory Theater.

The cast of Three Rivers includes theater vets Alfre Woodard and Christopher J. Hanke.