John Schneider was born in Mount Kisco, New York. He stands 6' 4" tall, and graduated from North Springs High School in Atlanta, Georgia.

His big break came when he won the role of Bo Duke on "The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979) on CBS from 1979-1985. He auditioned for the role pretending he was a genuine country boy. He had a weeks growth of beard and held a beer can claiming he was from Snellville, Georgia.

Fast forward to 2008...John plays Marshall Bowman on the ABC Family show "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." More recently John Schneider can be seen on several episodes of the FX Network show Nip/Tuck as Ram Peters, the CEO of an adult film company. Also, he performed as Billy Flynn in the Musical Chicago on Broadway. Schneider is also known to television audiences as Jonathan Kent, the adoptive father of Clark Kent on the hit show Smallville, starring in 111 episodes before his character was killed off. Schneider also directed episodes of Smallville, including S3E20 and Talisman, which received a respectable 8.8 rating out of 10 on TV.com. Some Smallville episodes contain references to Schneider's other work in The Dukes of Hazzard. Schneider also guest starred for the latter half of Smallville: Season 5 appearing in the episodes 'Void' and 'Oracle'.

Schneider has appeared in many films and TV series such as the miniseries 10.5. He had a recurring role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and guest-starred on such shows as Diagnosis Murder, Touched by an Angel, JAG and Walker, Texas Ranger. He also appeared in the off-Broadway play The Civil War as a Confederate soldier.

Schneider has also been mentioned in other media such as South Park's episode 505 Terrence and Phillip: Behind the Blow, saying that their made for TV episode was shown instead of the very popular "John Schneider Variety Hour", an obvious joke of it being put on instead of South Park.

In 2008, Schneider made an appearance on the series CSI:Miami in an episode titled "Tunnel Vision." He played the bad guy role.

Schneider plays the lead in the new Australian action film,The Ninja, also starring Roger Cross, John Wesley Shipp, Tania Zaetta, Jeremy Kewley and Rob Baard - as reported by the Geelong Advertiser.

John often does his own driving in tv and movies. He can be seen doing very complex driving in many episodes of Smallville.

During the 1980s, Schneider parlayed his success as Bo Duke with a string of country music hits. His biggest hits include: "It's Now or Never" (#4 country and #14 pop, 1981; a remake of the Elvis Presley hit); "I've Been Around Enough to Know" (#1 country, 1984); "Country Girls" (#1 country, 1985); "What's a Memory Like You (Doing in a Love Like This)" and "You're The Last Thing I Needed Tonight" (both #1 country, 1986); "At the Sound of the Tone" (#5 country, 1986); and "Love, You Ain't Seen the Last of Me" (#6 country) in 1987.

John Schneider has recorded 10 albums to date. His co-star (on The Dukes of Hazzard), Tom Wopat, also enjoyed success on the country music charts. Schneider and Wopat sang several duets on the TV series, sometimes with co-star Catherine Bach. In fact, in the season 7 DVD box set, the trio performed a remake of the show's theme song "Good Ol' Boys" in a music video as a tribute to their friend Waylon Jennings.