An attractive, innocent-looking blond lead, often cast as a smarmy yuppie scum you love to hate, James Spader won the Best Actor Award at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival for his role as Graham, the sexually impotent outsider who disrupts the lives of a young Southern lawyer, his wife and her sister, in Steven Soderbergh's "sex, lies and videotape.” Prior to that success, he had gained notice for two portrayals of reprehensible wealthy psychopaths: as the villainous best friend of Andrew McCarthy in "Pretty in Pink" (1986) and as the lowlife cocaine dealer who forces Robert Downey Jr. to prostitute himself for drugs in "Less Than Zero" (1987). Although he has gone to the well frequently to trot out his upwardly mobile young professional for public consumption (i.e., "Wall Street" 1987), Spader has also proven effective when playing against type in other outings.
The son of teachers, Spader dropped out of prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts at the age of 17 to pursue an acting career in NYC. Following his film debut as Brooke Shields' brother in "Endless Love" (1981), the actor worked in television for several years before abandoning the medium when his feature career took off. He inherited Kevin Bacon's role for the 1983 unsold CBS pilot for "Diner,” then played Frank Converse's slightly rebellious son in the short-lived "The Family Tree" (NBC, 1983), about a blended family. That same year, he also made his TV-movie debut as the son of Robert Mitchum who embarks on a murder spree in "A Killer in the Family" (ABC) and played Dennis Weaver's son who recognizes his father's drug dependency in "Cocaine: One Man's Addiction" (NBC). By the mid-80s as his film career waxed, Spader had curtailed his small screen appearances, although he was heard as a guest caller on the second season premiere of the hit NBC sitcom "Frasier" in 1994.
Spader starred in the moderately successful "White Palace" (1990), portraying a yuppie widower who falls for older woman Susan Sarandon, and was a standout as a slimeball with his own particular ethics in "The Music of Chance" (1993). In "Storyville" (1992), as a New Orleans lawyer turned congressional candidate tempted by fleshly pleasures, and again, at the mercy of a destructive femme fatale in the erotic thriller "Dream Lover" (1994), his typically confounded pretty boy found himself on foundering crafts. He faired much better playing his trademark loathsome yuppie in support of Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer for "Wolf", an imaginative urban take on the werewolf legend, and the surprising hit "Stargate" (both 1994) brought a welcome change of scene, casting him as a nerdy Egyptologist who becomes involved in a fantasy-cum-desert/sci-fi adventure with Kurt Russell. He was back to form as the scheming, amoral hit man characterized as 'evil incarnate' in John Herzfeld's "2 Days in the Valley" (1996).
Spader stepped boldly into "Crash" (1996), David Cronenberg's world of fetishism and erotic obsession, where crumpled metal, broken glass and gaping wounds titillate. He found perhaps his most thought-provoking role since his 1989 breakthrough and delivered an inspired portrayal of a kinky man whose involvement in a fatal accident revitalizes his sex life. Semi-detached from his equally adventurous wife (Deborah Kara Unger), Spader's James Ballard succumbs to the powerful aphrodisiac of the crash to share compulsive distant sex in cars with Holly Hunter's widow, Rosanna Arquette's cripple whose biggest turn-on is the monstrous gash on the back of her thigh, and Elias Koteas' leader of a band of accident enthusiasts who get their kicks recreating notorious crack-ups. Spader reunited with Unger and cut a terrific presence with his dyed-black Elvis-style hair-do in the murder mystery "Keys to Tulsa" before giving a more conventional performance as an unethical doctor in Sidney Lumet's "Critical Care" (both 1997).
A devoted family man, Spader has said, "If I don't need the money, I don't work." After showcasing his flair for physical comedy as a bumbling publisher in "Curtain Call" (originally intended for theatrical release but sold to the cable channel Starz! and aired in 1998), a fairly clichéd romantic comedy which gave Michael Caine and Maggie Smith the best parts as the ghosts haunting Spader's brownstone, he returned to features in "Supernova" (2000). With his connection to the "Alien" franchise, director Walter Hill seemed an ideal choice to helm this entry to the sci-fi genre, but the unremarkable script simply combined elements from past pictures without adding anything new to excite audiences. Spader was looking buff as Nick Vanzant, co-pilot of a battered 22nd Century salvage ship, but the troubled project, from which Hill removed his name (to be credited as Thomas Lee), arrived in theaters with a whimper. Desperately in need of a hit, Spader next starred in the promising "The Watcher" as a detective playing a mind game with serial killer Keanu Reeves. The movie, however, turned out to be another dud.
Spader finally found the role to revive his quickly diminishing image with 2002's "Secretary." The indie film featured Spader as a man who embarks on an S&M relationship with his young female secretary, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. He finally scored a hit with this offbeat and sexy film and it signaled the start of a new era in Spader's seasoned career. In 2003 the actor was quickly snapped up by television producer David E. Kelley to anchor the long-standing legal drama "The Practice" after budget cuts forced Kelley to axe many of the show's cast members to keep it on the air. Spader's charismatic and morally slippery character Alan Shore breathed new life into the aging series' final season – including earning the actor the Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series – and was carried over to star opposite William Shatner in the spin-off series "Boston Legal" on ABC (2004 - ). Spader's always unpredictable performance garnered an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in the show's debut season, a feat that was followed by another Emmy win in 2007 – his third ever in the Outstanding Lead Actor category.