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| occupation = Actor, singer, producer, composer |
| occupation = Actor, singer, producer, composer |
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| years_active = 1950–present |
| years_active = 1950–present |
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| religion = [[Lutheran]] |
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| spouse = Susan Geston (1977–present; 3 children) |
| spouse = Susan Geston (1977–present; 3 children) |
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Revision as of 01:40, 10 June 2011
Jeff Bridges | |
|---|---|
 Bridges at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010 | |
| Born | Jeffrey Leon Bridges December 4, 1949 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, singer, producer, composer |
| Years active | 1950–present |
| Spouse(s) | Susan Geston (1977–present; 3 children) |
Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart.
Bridges is also a musician, a photographer, and an occasional vintner and a storyteller. He comes from a well-known acting family, and worked as a child with his father, Lloyd Bridges, and brother Beau on television's Sea Hunt. Some of his best-known movies include Tron, Fearless, Iron Man, The Contender, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Jagged Edge, Against All Odds, The Fisher King, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Seabiscuit, Tron: Legacy, and The Big Lebowski.
Bridges earned his sixth Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in 2010's True Grit.
Early life
Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California December 4, 1949. He was born into a showbiz family, the son of actress and writer Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson) and actor Lloyd Bridges.[1][2] His older brother Beau Bridges is also an actor. He has two other siblings, younger sister Lucinda and brother Garrett. Garrett died of sudden infant death syndrome in 1948. Growing up, Bridges shared a close relationship with his brother Beau, who acted as a surrogate father when their father was working.[3] Bridges and his siblings were raised in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.[4] He attended University High School in Los Angeles.. At age 14, Jeff toured with his father in a stage production of Anniversary Waltz.
After graduating high school, Bridges journeyed to New York where he studied acting at the famed Herbert Berghof Studio. Before becoming an actor he served in the U.S. Coast Guard in the late 1960s, and as a reservist in the early 1970s to avoid being sent to Vietnam.
Career
Film career
Jeff Bridges made his first screen appearance at the age of four months, playing Jane Greer's infant son in The Company She Keeps in 1950. In his youth, Bridges and Beau made occasional appearances on their father's show Sea Hunt (1958–1961) and the CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962–1963). His first major role came in the 1971 movie The Last Picture Show, for which he garnered a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He co-starred in the 1972 film Fat City directed by legendary director, John Huston. He was nominated again for the same award for his performance opposite Clint Eastwood in the 1974 film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. In 1976, he starred as the protagonist Jack Prescott in the first remake of King Kong, opposite Jessica Lange. This film was a huge commercial success, earning $90 million worldwide, more than triple its $23 million budget, and also winning an Academy Award for special effects.
One of his better known roles was in the 1982 science-fiction cult classic Tron, in which he played Kevin Flynn, a video game programmer (a role he reprised in late 2010 with the sequel Tron: Legacy). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1984 for playing the alien in Starman. He was also acclaimed for his roles in the thriller Against All Odds and the crime drama Jagged Edge. His role in Fearless is recognized by some critics to be one of his best performances.[5] One critic dubbed it a masterpiece;[6] Pauline Kael wrote that he "may be the most natural and least self-conscious screen actor that has ever lived".[7] In 1998 he starred as what is arguably his most famous role, "The Dude" in the Coen Brothers' cult-classic film The Big Lebowski. He has stated in the past that he relates to "The Dude" more than any of his other roles.
In 2000, he received his fourth Academy Award nomination for his role in The Contender. He also starred in the 2005 Terry Gilliam movie Tideland, his second with the director (the first being 1991's The Fisher King). He shaved his trademark mane of hair to play the role of Obadiah Stane in the 2008 Marvel comic book adaptation Iron Man.[8] In July 2008, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, he appeared in a teaser for TRON: Legacy, shot as concept footage for director Joseph Kosinski; this developed into a full 3D feature release in 2010.
In 2010, Bridges won the Academy Award for Best Actor, Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for his role as Bad Blake in the film Crazy Heart.[9] (Bridges is one of the oldest actors ever to win an Academy Award; he was also one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated. In 2010, he won his Oscar for Crazy Heart at the age of 60; in 1972, he was nominated for The Last Picture Show at age 22.)
Bridges at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival He received his sixth Academy Award nomination for his role in True Grit, a collaboration with the Coen brothers in which he starred alongside Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, and Hailee Steinfeld. Both the film, and Bridges' performance as Rooster Cogburn, were critically praised. Bridges lost to Colin Firth, whom he had beaten for the Oscar in the same category the previous year.
Other work
Bridges had been an amateur photographer since high school, and began taking photographs on movie sets during Starman, at the suggestion of co-star Karen Allen.[10] He has published many of these photographs online and in the 2003 Pictures: Photographs by Jeff Bridges.[11][12][13]
Bridges is also a cartoonist. Some of his "doodles" have appeared in films including K-PAX and The Door in the Floor.[citation needed] Bridges narrated the documentary Lost in La Mancha (2002), about the "unmaking" of a Terry Gilliam retelling of Don Quixote, tentatively titled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which would have starred Johnny Depp as Sancho Panza and Jean Rochefort as the quixotic hero. Bridges also narrated the documentaries Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West (2002, IMAX), Raising the Mammoth (2000, TV), and The Heroes of Rock and Roll (1979, TV). He also voiced the character Big Z in the animated picture Surf's Up.
Bridges has performed TV commercial voice-over work as well, including Hyundai's 2007 "Think About It" advertisement campaign[14] as well as the Duracell advertisements in the "Trusted Everywhere" campaign.[15]
On January 15, 2010 Bridges performed the song "I Don't Know" from Crazy Heart on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. In the film The Contender, in which he co-starred, Bridges recorded a version of Johnny Cash's standard "Ring of Fire" with Kim Carnes that played over the pivotal opening credits.
In February 2010, he was among the nearly 80 musicians to sing on the charity-single remake of We Are the World.[16]
On October 24, 2010, Bridges appeared at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit concert and played a set with Neko Case.
On December 18, 2010, Bridges hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live; he had hosted the show before in 1983 with his brother, Beau. With the December 18, 2010 episode, Bridges beat Sigourney Weaver's record for longest gap between hosting appearances on SNL (Weaver had a 24-year gap between her first time hosting in 1986 and her second time hosting in 2010, while Bridges had a 27-year gap between his first appearance in 1983 and his most recent one, also in 2010).
On April 19, 2011, Country Music Television announced that Bridges had signed a recording contract with Blue Note Records/EMI Music Group. He will work with producer T-Bone Burnett and will release his debut album in 2011.[17]
Personal life
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Bridges married Susan Geston in 1977. They met on the movie shoot of Rancho Deluxe, which was filmed on a ranch where Geston was working as a maid.[18] They have three daughters: Isabelle Annie (born August 6, 1981), Jessica Lily "Jessie" (born June 14, 1983), and Hayley Roselouise (born October 17, 1985). He became a grandfather for the first time on March 31, 2011 when Isabelle gave birth to a daughter, Grace.
He has a reputation for being one of the most likeable men in Hollywood. His Last Picture Show director Peter Bogdanovich has said of Bridges - "I've never, ever heard of him pulling a star turn or showing any ego. He was an absolute pleasure to work with". And his Big Lebowski co-star John Goodman said "It's like watching a diamond cutter, When you look at the diamond, you don't think of the work, you just notice there's no flaws". And The New Yorker summed him up very simply as "the best actor alive".
He describes himself as being "Extremely laid back". It was only during the filming of The Iceman Cometh that he decided to focus solely on acting, and make it his profession. Up until then, he'd been "all about drugs, sex and meditation". He has said, playing opposite such heavyweights as Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin and Frederic March, was where he first took acting absolutely seriously.
Bridges has studied Buddhism. He meditates for half an hour before beginning work on a film set.[19]
Bridges is also a known cannabis user; in an interview, he admitted to giving up smoking marijuana during the filming of The Big Lebowski, but says he has not "permanently kicked the habit".[20] He is also a keen amateur photographer and painter.
Humanitarian efforts
In 1984, Bridges and other entertainment industry leaders founded the End Hunger Network, which has a long record of innovative and impactful initiatives aimed at encouraging, stimulating and supporting action to end childhood hunger. He embraces President Obama's initiative to End Childhood Hunger by 2015. He has teamed up with the Zen Peacemakers who operate a non-traditional soup kitchen that builds a cross-class community and provides food and wellness offerings with dignity.[21] In November 2010, Bridges became spokesman for the No Kid Hungry Campaign of the organization Share our Strength. Its goal is to present and undertake a state-by-state strategy to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015.[22]
Filmography
Discography
Studio albums
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Be Here Soon |
|
| Jeff Bridges[28] |
|
See also
References
- ^ "Actress Dorothy Bridges dies, Mother of Beau and Jeff Bridges was 93". Variety Magazine. 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
- ^ "Jeff Bridges Biography (1949–)".
- ^ "Jeff Bridges is still the Dude".
- ^ McLellan, Dennis (2009-02-21). "Dorothy Bridges dies at 93; 'the hub' of an acting family". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
- ^ "100 Essential Male Film Performances: Part 4 – From the Page to the Screen".
- ^ "Fearless — A movie masterpiece about transcendence".
- ^ Philip French (6 August 2006). "Here's looking back at you". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
- ^ "Iron Man — Official Site".
- ^ Sheridan, Emily (2010-03-08). "Fifth time lucky Oscar winner Jeff Bridges pays tribute to his 'gorgeous wife of 33 years' at Governors Ball". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 2010-03-08.
- ^ "Photography". JeffBridges.com. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
- ^ powerHouse Books, 2003, ISBN 1-57687-177-0; Library of Congress control number: 2003046711
- ^ "Library of Congress Online Catalogs".
- ^ "pictures".
- ^ "Oscars: Hyundai debuts clever Academy Awards ad with Jeff Bridges' actor friends". Theweeklydriver.com. 2010-03-06. Retrieved 2010-08-16. [dead link]
- ^ Samaniego, Danielle. "Name That Voice: Ten Celebrity Commercial Voice-Overs". Divinecaroline.com. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
- ^ "'We Are The World – 25 For Haiti' Artists Include Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber".
- ^ "CMT : News : Jeff Bridges signs to Blue Note Records". Country Music Television. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
- ^
"Jeff Bridges: On Marriage". Reader's Digest. 2006. Retrieved 2008-09-09.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Tricycle: The Buddhist Review Fall 2010 Vol. 20, No. 1 pg. 54
- ^
"Jeff Bridges Gave Up Marijuana For Movie Role". Star Pulse.com. 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-18.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Child Hunger and How Zen House Can Help". Huffington Post. 2010-07-15. Retrieved 2010-08-14.
- ^ "Jeff Bridges to Launch Campaign Against Childhood Hunger in National Press Club Address". PRNewswire. 2010-11-05. Retrieved 2010-11-06.
- ^ Untitled Richard Brautigan Project at IMDb
- ^ Pablo at IMDb
- ^ R.I.P.D. at IMDb
- ^ Casting By at IMDb
- ^ The Seventh Son at IMDb
- ^ "Future Releases for Country Radio Stations". All Access. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
External links
- 1949 births
- Alumni of University High School (Los Angeles, California)
- American film actors
- American voice actors
- Actors from Los Angeles, California
- Best Actor Academy Award winners
- Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
- Independent Spirit Award winners
- Living people
- Saturn Award winners
- United States Coast Guard personnel
- American country singers
- Blue Note Records artists
- EMI Records artists