Jeff Clarke appears as part of the One Chicago franchise when he is introduced on “Chicago Fire.” Once a Marine deployed in Iraq, Clarke became a Firehouse 33 relief team member before being transferred to Firehouse 51.
Clarke is a loyal and dedicated firefighter valuable to each station he works in. His most dramatic storyline on the NBC series features the veteran being accused of murdering his ex-wife Lisa’s (Victoria Blade) boyfriend, Hayes (Michael Huftile). But his alibi, and Lisa’s confession, eventually prove his innocence. The character appears in 20 episodes of “Chicago Fire,” but when he suffers a severe back injury on the job, he decides to leave the high-pressure life of firefighting and returns to medical school.
American actor Jeff Hephner portrayed Clarke throughout the character’s “Chicago Fire” run before his exit in 2016, but he wasn’t ready to leave Chicago entirely. Fans may be interested to know what he’s been up to since playing the former Marine turned firefighter.
He reprised his role on Chicago Med before leaving for good
His character’s tenure on “Chicago Fire” had ended, but Jeff Hephner wasn’t quite finished playing Jeff Clarke. Instead, the former marine became a medical student on “Chicago Med” for 16 episodes. Once he finishes school, Jeff finally leaves both shows, and seemingly the franchise, to take up a residency in Hawaii.
After departing the One Chicago franchise in 2017, Hephner has continued to work steadily, mainly in television. He has a recurring role on Season 2 of “Mars” as Kurt Hurrelle and also co-starred in the short-lived series “Our Kind of People” and “Almost Family.” His film roles also include “Peppermint” and “The Shuroo Process.”
Most recently, Hephner has been featured in “Power Book II: Ghost” as major antagonist Detective Whitman, and he has a recurring role in “For All Mankind” as Sam Cleveland. For his part, the actor, in a Backstage interview from 2019, credited his success to never giving up, even after facing consistent rejection: “If you’re going to do this [acting], you’ve just got to do it … [But] if you keep doing it, things will just balance out, and I think that’s keyed on persistence.”
