Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges
Bridges at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010.
Born	Jeffrey Leon Bridges December 4, 1949 (1949-12-04) (age 61) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, singer, producer, composer
Years active	1950–present
Spouse	Susan Geston (1977–present) 3 children

Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor and musician. His most notable films include The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Tron, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, Fearless, The Big Lebowski, The Contender, Iron Man, and Crazy Heart, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Personal life

Jeffrey Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress and writer Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson) and actor Lloyd Bridges.^[1][2] He has an older brother, Beau, and a younger sister, Lucinda. Another brother, Garrett, died of sudden infant death syndrome in 1948. Growing up, Bridges shared a close relationship with his brother, actor Beau Bridges, 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 served in the US Coast Guard in the late 1960s, and as a reservist in the early 1970s.^[5]

Bridges, who is also the uncle of actor Jordan 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.^[6] They have three daughters: Isabelle (born in 1981), Jessica Lily (born in 1983), and Hayley Roselouise (born in 1985). 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."^[7]

Film career

Bridges at the premiere of The Men Who Stare at Goats, during the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

As a teenager, Bridges appeared, along with his brother Beau, on their father's CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962–1963).

His first major role was in the 1971 movie The Last Picture Show for which he garnered a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. 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 remake of King Kong opposite future academy award winner Jessica Lange (her first role). This film was a huge commercial success, earning back $80 million worldwide ($282 million when adjusted for inflation), triple its $24 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; it's a role he is set to reprise in late 2010 in 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.^[8] One critic dubbed it a masterpiece;^[9] Pauline Kael wrote that he "may be the most natural and least self-conscious screen actor that has ever lived".^[10] He also starred as "The Dude" in the Coen Brothers' cult-classic film The Big Lebowski.

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 played the role of Obadiah Stane in the 2008 Marvel motion picture, Iron Man.^[11] In July 2008 and July 2009, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, he appeared in a teaser for Tron Legacy, the sequel to Tron.

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.^[12]

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.^[13] He has published many of these photographs online and in the 2003 Pictures: Photographs by Jeff Bridges.^[14][15][16]

Bridges is also a cartoonist. Some of his "doodles" have appeared in films including K-PAX and The Door in the Floor.

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^[17] as well as the Duracell advertisements in the "Trusted Everywhere" campaign.^[18]

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.^[19]

Humanitarian Work

In 1984, Jeff 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.^[20]

Filmography

References

External links

• Jeff Bridges at the Internet Movie Database
• Jeff Bridges at Allmovie
• Official website