Jeff Bridges (1949)

 early life

Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California on December 4, 1949. He was born into a showbiz family, the son of actress and writer Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson) and actor Lloyd Bridges. His older brother, Beau Bridges, is also an actor. He has a younger sister, Lucinda, and had another brother, Garrett, who 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. Bridges and his siblings were raised in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. He attended University High School in Los Angeles. At age fourteen, Jeff toured with his father in a stage production of Anniversary Waltz.

After graduating from high school, Bridges journeyed to New York where he studied acting at the famed Herbert Berghof Studio. Also, after turning 18, Bridges joined the United States Coast Guard Reserve , where he served for eight years .

 career

 Film career

Bridges made his first screen appearance at the age of four months 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 film 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 Best Supporting Actor 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 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 . 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. One critic dubbed it a masterpiece; Pauline Kael wrote that he "may be the most natural and least self-conscious screen actor that has ever lived". 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 said 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 film 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. 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.

Bridges is one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated for an Academy Award , and one of the oldest ever to win . Crazy Heart also won him the 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.

Bridges 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.

 Music

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. On October 24, 2010, Bridges appeared at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit concert and played a set with Neko Case.

On April 19, 2011, Country Music Television announced that Bridges had signed a recording contract with Blue Note Records/EMI Music Group. He worked with producer T-Bone Burnett and released his debut album, Jeff Bridges, on August 16, 2011.

 Other work

Bridges has been an amateur photographer since high school, and began taking photographs on film sets during Starman, at the suggestion of co-star Karen Allen. He has published many of these photographs online and in the 2003 Pictures: Photographs by Jeff Bridges.

Bridges is 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 , 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 , Raising the Mammoth , and The Heroes of Rock and Roll . 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 as well as the Duracell advertisements in the "Trusted Everywhere" campaign.

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).

 personal life

Bridges married Susan Geston in 1977. They met on the film shoot of Rancho Deluxe, which was filmed on a ranch where Geston was working as a maid. They have three daughters: Isabelle Annie , Jessica Lily "Jessie" , and Hayley Roselouise . He became a grandfather on March 31, 2011, when Isabelle gave birth to a daughter, Grace.

Bridges has studied Buddhism. He meditates for half an hour before beginning work on a film set.

He lives in Montecito, California.

 Humanitarian efforts

In 1984, Bridges and other entertainment industry leaders founded the End Hunger Network aimed at encouraging, stimulating and supporting action to end childhood hunger. He supports 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. 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.

 legacy

Bridges 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". 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". 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 had 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.