To call Jeff Bridges "the most underappreciated great actor of his generation," as did Janet Maslin in her The New York Times review of "American Heart" (1992), became something of a cliché in contemporary film criticism. Hailed for his relaxed, naturalistic performance style, Bridges remained an A-list leading man for over four decades without the benefit of ever having been a box-office champ. Furthermore, Bridges accomplished this feat without ever having to resort to the broad self-parody of such contemporaries as Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. Basically a character actor with leading man looks, Bridges built his reputation with a wide assortment of parts in various genres. Much like the late, great Spencer Tracy, however, Bridges’ greatest talent was his ability to take on complex, morally ambiguous characters with such ease that people accused him of playing himself.
The son of famed actor Lloyd Bridges and the younger brother of actor Beau Bridges, Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on Dec. 4, 1949, in Los Angeles, CA. Destined by blood to go into the family profession, Jeff Bridges made his first screen appearance at the tender age of four months, playing Jane Greer's infant son in "The Company She Keeps" (1950). Growing up, he and his brother Beau got some valuable early acting experience playing drowning victims and the like on their father Lloyd's popular undersea adventure series, "Sea Hunt" (Synd., 1957-1961). As Bridges recalled to The London Times in 1999: "[My dad would] always say, 'Do you want this part? You'll be gone from school for a couple of weeks.' And when you're eight years old, it's kind of fun." The brothers also popped up occasionally on their father’s subsequent TV venture, "The Lloyd Bridges Show" (CBS, 1962-63). Fun and games aside, however, the experience of seeing their father become typecast after “Sea Hunt” also taught the junior Bridges a valuable lesson about diversifying one’s roles.
In 1971, Bridges joined the ensemble cast of director Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show" – an adaptation of the award-winning novel by Larry McMurtry. A coming of age tale set a small Texas town in the 1950s, “Picture Show” earned the 23-year-old Bridges his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the boyishly charming Duane Jackson. Bridges further enhanced his image in a series of quality projects, beginning with John Huston's "Fat City" (1972) as a struggling boxer, and Robert Benton's directorial debut, "Bad Company" (1972), in which he played a likable, if untrustworthy con artist who drifts into lawlessness in the post-Civil War west. The following year, Bridges brought a three-dimensional believability to his portrayal of moonshining stock-car racing legend Junior Jackson in "The Last American Hero" (1973). Later that year, Bridges subsequently stood tall amidst such heavy hitters as Robert Ryan, Fredric March and Lee Marvin in John Frankenheimer's filmic adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s "The Iceman Cometh” (1973).
Having grown in stature with each successive picture, Bridges was a revelation in Michael Cimino's directorial debut, "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974). Demonstrating his impressive acting range while exuding an effortless screen charisma, Bridges wound up stealing the picture right out from under its star, Clint Eastwood. When “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” earned Bridges another Best Supporting Actor nod, predictions abounded that the young actor would be the next big thing in Hollywood. Unfortunately, several ill-advised choices over the next few years ended up dampening Hollywood's enthusiasm for the actor – most notably his lead roles in the 1976 remake of "King Kong” and Michael Cimino's studio-killing epic drama-turned-failure, "Heaven's Gate" (1980).
Thankfully, Bridges was able to break his downward career freefall in the mid-1980s with a number of timely commercial hits. The first was director Taylor Hackford’s "Against All Odds" (1984), a loose remake of the 1947 drama “Out of the Past" (1947). The film, which co-starred Rachel Ward and James Woods, also featured a cameo by Bridges’ “first” leading lady, Jane Greer, as his mother. Later that year, Bridges earned his first Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his low-key portrayal of the titular Earth-bound alien in the science-fiction drama, “Starman” (1984). Over the course of filming, Bridges kicked off a lifelong friendship with “Starman” director John Carpenter, who gushed to Larry Worth of The New York Post: "[Jeff is] the greatest, as an actor and a person. He's the best actor of his generation, bar none." A year later, Bridges would enjoy his greatest box-office success to date as a charismatic, successful businessman accused of a high-profile murder in the legal thriller, "Jagged Edge" (1985), co-starring Glenn Close.
Bridges proved utterly convincing as the almost neurotically optimistic, indomitable, all-American entrepreneur Preston Tucker in director Francis Ford Coppola’s, "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (1988) – a project which enabled him to act again with his father, Lloyd. Keeping things in the family, Bridges next teamed up with brother Beau to give a complex performance as Jack Baker, a once celebrated piano prodigy reduced to entertaining as a lounge lizard in "The Fabulous Baker Boys" (1989). A resounding critical success, the film earned co-star Michelle Pfeiffer her second Oscar nomination, but some found Bridges even more impressive. He continued to give typically strong, but underrated performances during the 1990’s. Often willing to drastically change his looks to suit a part, Bridges reprised the role of an older, fatter Duane Jackson in “Texasville" (1990), the long-awaited sequel to "The Last Picture Show." Set 30 years after the original movie, Bridges gained 20 pounds for his role as the Texas roughneck-turned-millionaire who is desperate to recapture his lost youth. Unfortunately, not even Bridges’ splendid chemistry with “Texasville” co-star, Annie Potts (as Duane’s wife) could save the film from failure.
Despite his up and down track record at the box office, Bridges nevertheless continued to grind out exemplary performances. The understated angst of his disk jockey character, Jack Lucas, in the gentle fantasy, "The Fisher King" (1991), again impressed critics by providing an effective counterpoint to the exuberant Robin Williams. Though Bridges wound up being overlooked by the Academy, the picture earned actress Mercedes Ruehl a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Bridges' girlfriend. For his next role as an ex-con seeking to reconcile with his wayward son, Bridges grew his hair out long and dramatically sculpted his physique for the respectfully reviewed indie, "American Heart" (1993). That same year, Bridges won |raves for his portrayal of Max Klein, a man transfigured after his survival from an air disaster, in "Fearless" (1993). Nominated for an Oscar, “Fearless” was considered by many to be Bridges’ finest, most courageous piece of work to date.
Unfortunately, moviegoers continued to under-appreciate the actor’s work. In 1994, Bridges fared poorly as a bomb squad cop pitted against Irish terrorist Tommy Lee Jones in "Blown Away" (1994), a critical flop that still did modest business. His follow-up, "Wild Bill" (1995), an eccentric "art western” from writer-director Walter Hill, earned Bridges some enthusiastic kudos, but it barely even received a release. Although Bridges delivered the goods as the tough, but fair skipper of a floating prep school in Ridley Scott's lusciously photographed "White Squall" (1996), the involving, well-acted, coming-of-age sea saga sank at the box office. Later that year, Bridges showed off his impressive comic timing as Barbra Streisand’s buttoned-down platonic paramour in the old-fashioned romantic comedy, "The Mirror Has Two Faces" (1996). During production, rumors abounded of friction between Bridges and Streisand, but both stars downplayed the reports as merely idle gossip.
For his next project, Bridges did what he did best – make a 180 degree turn to transform himself into the overweight, greasy-haired, burnt-out, beach bum-cum-bowler in the Coen Brothers now classic comedy, "The Big Lebowski" (1998). Weirdly engaging in his role as 'The Dude' – described by the narrator as "the laziest man in Los Angeles County" – Bridges was initially hesitant to take the role of the reefer-toking, white Russian-swilling Dude, because he did not want it to appear as if he condoned drug use. Thankfully for fans of the “The Big Lebowski,” Bridges wound up changing his mind. The film became an instant cult classic – even more, after being released to home video/DVD.
Leaving the Dude's bloated physique behind, Bridges slipped back into a more comfortable guise for his next role of the rumpled professor in the thriller "Arlington Road" (1999). In it, Bridges plays a paranoid academician whose discourses on domestic terrorism lead him to believe that his new neighbors are up to no good. Despite those two superb back-to-back performances, Bridges was back to being underused again in “The Muse” (1999), in which he played an Oscar-winning screenwriter who introduces his best friend (Albert Brooks) to Sharon Stone's title character. Rounding out the year, Bridges and Stone re-teamed as a millionaire racehorse breeder and his alcoholic wife in "Simpatico," adapted from the Sam Shepard play.
The new millennium saw Bridges expanding his artistic horizons. An accomplished photographer in his spare time, Bridges had his evocative behind-the-scenes photo memoirs from films like "White Squall" published in Premiere magazine, and later, explored his longtime musical interests by releasing his debut album, Be Here Now in 2000. Despite the inevitable slings and arrows from wary critics who called the album a vanity project, Bridges handled the record with the very same level of Everyman dignity with which he approached his acting roles. Indeed, the participation of such musical heavyweights as Michael McDonald and David Crosby lent the album its share of gravitas. Later that year, Bridges returned to the big screen to play the deceptively shrewd and manipulative U.S. President Jackson Evans in the political drama, "The Contender" (2000). The actor followed that up with a role in director Iain Softley’s “K-Pax” (2001), a science-fiction drama co-starring Kevin Spacey. In it, Bridges played Dr. Mark Powell, an earnest psychiatrist who comes to doubt his own diagnosis of a seemingly delusional patient (Spacey) who claims he is from another planet.
Bridges was especially enjoyable in his next picture, the Gary Ross-directed “Seabiscuit” (2003), in which he played wealthy financier, Charles Howard. Summoning a winning synthesis of his previous character, Preston Tucker, and his own father, Lloyd Bridges, Bridges breathed life into the optimistic, but grief-tempered character of Howard, the man responsible for bankrolling the famed 20th Century racehorse. Although the brisk pace of the film did not allow Bridges to fully explore his character's extreme emotional depths, the actor effectively conveyed Howard's entrepreneurial spirit. Almost simultaneously, Bridges appeared in the quirky comedy-drama, "Masked & Anonymous" (2003), the story of a singer-songwriter who emerges from obscurity to stage a benefit concert. The movie starred Bob Dylan – who also handled the directing chores – as singer Jack Fate and Bridges as Tom Friend, a jaded and bitter veteran music journalist covering the concert.
Bridges’ maintained his steady output well into the decade, starring in an average of about one film per year. After a co-starring turn in director Terry Gilliam’s underappreciated fantasy, “Tideland” (2005), Bridges starred in the gymnastics-themed sports comedy “Stick It” (2006). The following year, Bridges lent his voice to his first animated project “Surf’s Up” (2007), an ambitious CGI-animated feature comedy about championship penguin surfers.
After several years without a major studio feature, Bridges finally emerged to co-star in “Iron Man” (2008), the first mega-success of that summer. He played Obadiah Stane, second in command at Stark Industries, which manufactures high-tech weaponry sold around the world. But when the company’s prodigal son, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), decides not to sell weapons after being held captive in Afghanistan, where he developed an iron suit designed to thwart violence, Stane attempts a hostile takeover that leads to stealing the Iron Man blueprints and designing his own bigger version. Aside from being a part of a strong cast that also included Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Terrence Howard as Rhodey, Bridges was able to live out his dream of shaving his head and growing a beard, making him look like a cross between Daddy Warbucks and the Gorton’s Fisherman.