Dean Cain Net Worth 2026

Dean Cain
Cain in 2025
Born	Dean George Tanaka (1966-07-31) July 31, 1966 (age 59) Harrison Township, Michigan, U.S.
Education	Princeton University (BA)
Occupations	Actor producer television host
Years active	1976–present
Known for	Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Ripley's Believe It or Not! Hit the Floor
Children	1
Football career
No. 11
Position	Free safety
Personal information
Listed height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Listed weight	180 lb (82 kg)
Career information
High school	Santa Monica (Santa Monica, California)
College	Princeton
NFL draft	1988: undrafted
Career history
Buffalo Bills (1988)*
* Offseason or practice squad member only
Awards and highlights
Consensus I-AA All-American (1987) John P. Poe–Richard W. Kazmaier Jr. Football Trophy (1987)

Dean George Cain (né Tanaka; born July 31, 1966) is an American actor best known for portraying Superman in the 1990s television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Cain was also the host of Ripley's Believe It or Not! and appeared in the sports drama series Hit the Floor.

Dean George Tanaka^[1] was born on July 31, 1966,^[2] at Selfridge Air Force Base in Harrison Township, Michigan.^[3][4] His mother, Sharon Thomas, was an actress.^[5] Cain is mixed-race; his father, Roger Tanaka, was an American serviceman of Japanese descent, the son of John Megumi Tanaka and Miyoko Tanaka. Cain said that several members of his family were interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho as part of the internment of Japanese Americans.^[6] The rest of Cain's ancestry is Welsh, Irish, and French Canadian.^[7]

Cain said of his father, whom he never met, "He's not the kind of man I want to be. He was an unfaithful husband and not much of a father." Soon after Dean's birth, his mother, pursuing an acting career, moved him and his older brother Roger to Los Angeles. In 1969, Sharon married the film director Christopher Cain, who adopted her two sons, and Dean and Roger took their stepfather's surname. The couple moved to Malibu, California, and had a daughter, Krisinda.^[8][5]

Cain attended Santa Monica High School, where he excelled in sports. Among his schoolmates were Charlie Sheen, who played on the same baseball team as Cain when they were children, as well as Rob Lowe and his brother Chad. Cain graduated from high school in 1984 and attended Princeton University, where he majored in American history.^[9] He dated actress Brooke Shields, whom he met in a religion class at the university.^[10][8][11] Cain graduated in 1988 with a bachelor of arts in history. His senior thesis was "The History and Development of the Functions of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences".^[12]

With little hope of returning to sports, Cain turned to screenwriting and then acting, shooting dozens of commercials, including a volleyball-themed spot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and appearing on such popular television shows as Grapevine, A Different World, and Beverly Hills, 90210.

Cain and Teri Hatcher at the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards rehearsal, September 19, 1993

In 1993, Cain took his biggest role to date, that of Superman in the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. At the height of its popularity, the program drew an average of at least 15 million viewers per episode. The series ran for four seasons, ending in 1997. Cain later made his first return to the Superman franchise with a special guest role in a season seven episode of Smallville, as the immortal Dr. Curtis Knox, a character based upon the DC Comics villain Vandal Savage;^[29][30] Cain returned to the Superman universe again between 2015 and 2017, in a recurring role on Supergirl, as the title character's foster father, Jeremiah Danvers.^[31]

In 1998, Cain started the Angry Dragon Entertainment production company, which produced the TBS Superstation television series Ripley's Believe It or Not! He has also starred in several films, including The Broken Hearts Club (2000), Out of Time (2003), and Bailey's Billion$ (2004). In 2004, he played Scott Peterson in the made-for-television movie The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story. He appeared in a recurring role as Casey Manning in the television series Las Vegas. He also had a lead role in the VH1 hit series Hit the Floor, that of Pete Davenport, who becomes the new head coach of a fictional professional basketball team and has an illegitimate daughter who is a cheerleader for his Los Angeles Devils team.

In 2009, Cain was ranked No. 33 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the '90s.^[32] Cain was a contestant in an NBC celebrity reality competition series called Stars Earn Stripes. He won four out of six missions on the show, though he came in third in the finals. In 2012, he participated in Fox's dating game show The Choice.^[33]

In 2013, Cain hosted a reality show about Bigfoot titled 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, where he offered contestants $10 million to prove the existence of Bigfoot. Cain later appeared in the mid-season premiere of Comic Book Men, appearing at Kevin Smith's Secret Stash where the crew was celebrating 75 years of Superman, where it was claimed that his portrayal of the character helped people care about Superman again.^{[citation needed]} Cain appeared in the film God's Not Dead, in which he plays an arrogant businessman. In 2016, Cain played a guest role on the Netflix original series Lady Dynamite as Graham, the ex-fiancé of Maria Bamford.

Cain is also known for having appeared in 16 Christmas films and several faith-based films.^[34][35]

In 2018, Cain hosted a television infomercial for The National Real Estate Network, an entity which seeks to persuade individuals to attend meetings where they can learn about flipping real estate. In October of that year, it was discovered that Ronnie Mund (Ronnie the Limo Driver), the personal driver and bodyguard of radio DJ Howard Stern, had been using a photoshopped picture of Cain as his own publicity photo. Specifically, Mund's head had been transposed onto the body of Cain. Mund initially denied the photo was altered but eventually acknowledged he had been using the fraudulent photo for over five years. Mund claimed he was unaware the photo was not genuine.^[36] Cain co-starred in the 2018 film Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer about the investigation and trial of Kermit Gosnell. He also starred in the 2018 film Andy the Talking Hedgehog.^[37]

In 2019, Cain starred alongside Kristy Swanson in the play FBI Lovebirds, which mocked Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two FBI agents who were on the team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.^[38]

In June 2021, it was announced that he would make his directorial debut with Little Angels and star in it.^[39]

As of 2021, Cain was the Actor in Residence at High Point University.^[40]

For two years in the 1980s, Cain dated actress Brooke Shields while they were attending Princeton University.^[8] In 1992, he dated Gabrielle Reece, a professional beach-volleyball player and model.^[41][42] In 1997, Cain became engaged to Mindy McCready, a singer;^[43] they broke up in 1998.^[44]

He has a son, Christopher Cain, born June 11, 2000, with one of his ex-girlfriends, Samantha Torres, a Playboy Playmate and model.^[8] Cain named his son after his adoptive father, Christopher Cain, a film director.

On June 19, 2018, Cain was sworn in as a reserve police officer for the St. Anthony Police Department in Idaho.^[45] In 2020, he joined the Pocatello Police Department in Idaho as a reserve police officer.^[46] He also subsequently joined the Frederick County, Virginia Sheriff's Office as a reserve deputy sheriff.^[47]

Political views

Cain says that he voted for Bill Clinton in both the 1992 and 1996, as well as for Al Gore in 2000, the latter of which he later said he "regretted".^[38] He supported John McCain in 2008 and supported Rick Perry at the Republican primaries in 2012.^[48] In 2016, 2020, and 2024, he endorsed and voted for Donald Trump.^[49][50][51]

Cain is an advocate for recognition of the Armenian genocide. He participated in the Armenian-American march on the 90th anniversary of the genocide.^[52] He is also an executive producer of Architects of Denial, a 2017 historical documentary on the effects of the genocide.^[53] In 2018, he was awarded Armenia's Order of Honor by President Serzh Sargsyan for his contributions on spreading awareness.^[54]

In 2018, Cain was elected to the board of directors of the National Rifle Association of America.^[55][56] That same year, Cain said that he was once a registered Republican, but later became a registered independent, feeling that the Republican Party did not "fully represent his views".^[57]

In 2025, Cain released a video indicating that he had joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and encouraging others to "join the agency as well".^[58][59]

• Dean Cain at IMDb
• Dean Cain Biography - Yahoo! Movies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2011-01-20)