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Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an
Oscar winning American film actor and director who has often produced his own
films. During his career, Costner's films have grossed over $1.3 billion.
****
Birth name Kevin Michael Costner
Born January 18, 1955 (age 51)
Lynwood, California, USA
Height 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) [1]
Notable roles Lieutenant Dunbar in Dances with
Wolves,
Eliot Ness in The Untouchables,
Robin of Locksley in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Academy
Awards
Won: Academy Award for Best Director (1990) for
Dances with Wolves
Academy Award for Best Picture (1990) for Dances
with Wolves
Nominated: Academy Award for Best Actor (1990)
Dances with Wolves
****
Biography
Costner was born in Lynwood, California, the
youngest of the three sons (the middle son died at childbirth) of William
Costner, an electrician, and Sharon Tedrick; he has English, Irish, and distant
Native American and German ancestry. He attended elementary school at McKevette
School in Santa Paula, California. He spent his teenage years in various parts
of California; he lived in Orange County, then in Visalia (Tulare County)
attending Mt. Whitney High School, and finally graduated from Villa Park High
School in Villa Park, California in 1973. He went on to earn a B.A. in business
from California State University, Fullerton in 1978, where he was a member and
President of the Delta Chi Fraternity.
Costner became interested in acting while still in
college, and began taking acting lessons five nights a week. Costner later
worked briefly with a California marketing firm. During a chance encounter with
actor Richard Burton, who struck up a conversation with him, Burton advised the
young man that if he wanted to pursue acting, he should give everything up
completely and go after it with both hands. Costner married a
Portuguese-American by the name of Cindy Silva. With his wife behind him,
Costner worked on fishing boats and as a truck driver, and gave tours of stars'
Hollywood homes to support the two while he made the audition rounds.
Career
Costner appeared in a commercial for the Apple Lisa
in 1983. He was cast in the hit The Big Chill (1983). He filmed several scenes
which were planned as flashbacks, but they never made it to the final cut. He
was the friend who committed suicide, the event around which the plot of the
movie revolves. All that is seen of him are his slashed wrists as the mortician
dresses his corpse in the movie's opening scenes. Costner was a friend of
director Lawrence Kasdan, who later promised the actor a role in a future
project, which became Silverado and became a breakout role for Costner. In
return, Costner helped to get Kasdan's 1975 script for the The Bodyguard
produced.
Costner's most popular success was the epic Dances
With Wolves. He directed and starred in the film and served as one of two
producers. The film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won seven,
including two for him personally (Best Picture and Best Director). Costner
followed this with Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, the Oliver Stone-directed JFK
and The Bodyguard, all of which provided huge box office takings or critical
acclaim. Some of his subsequent film efforts have been criticized for being too
long and overly serious, and for squandering financial resources. Costner has
included his family members in several of his films, including Dances With
Wolves (his children Annie, Lily and Joe), Tin Cup (his son Joe and his own
parents), For Love of the Game (childhood home movies) and The Postman (again
featuring his children Annie, Lily and Joe).
He also took the title role in the biopic Wyatt
Earp, directed by established collaborator Lawrence Kasdan, which fizzled at the
summer 1994 box office. The science fiction epics Waterworld and The Postman,
the latter of which Costner also directed, were both initially considered major
disappointments at the box office. However, Waterworld grossed $264 million
worldwide from a $175 million budget (according to IMDB), despite generally poor
reviews. Costner developed the film Air Force One and was set to play the lead
role, but ultimately decided to concentrate on finishing The Postman instead. He
personally offered the project to Harrison Ford. Costner tried his hand at
singing in The Postman, recording a duet with Contemporary Christian music and
pop music artist Amy Grant for the end credits. The song is titled "You Didn't
Have To Be So Nice".
Costner's career revived somewhat in 2001 with
Thirteen Days. Open Range, which he directed and starred in, received high
critical acclaim in 2003 as a Revisionist Western, though it was only a minor
success commercially. In 2006, he branched into the music field, performing free
concerts for charity. A June 2006 concert netted almost $100,000 for four
Shreveport, Louisiana charities. Costner stars in The Guardian, which also stars
Ashton Kutcher and was released September 29, 2006, and will star in the
upcoming Mr. Brooks, where he will play a serial killer, also starring William
Hurt, is planned for release in the spring of 2007. Costner was honored on
September 6, 2006 when his hand and foot prints were set in the concrete in
front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre along side other great actors and
entertainers.
Personal life
Costner has three children with Cindy: Annie (born
in 1984), Lily (born in 1986) and Joe (born in 1988). Lily is currently
attending Wesleyan University. Joe is currently a freshman, and Annie graduated
from Brown University in 2006. All three of his children with Cindy were
educated in part at the Chandler School in Pasadena, California. He also has a
son, Liam (born in 1996), with Bridget Rooney, with whom he had a brief
relationship following his divorce from Cindy. Only through blood tests was it
revealed that Costner was Liam's father. Kevin and Cindy divorced in 1994 after
16 years of marriage.
On September 25, 2004, after ten years of being
single, Costner married his girlfriend of four years, Christine Baumgartner at
his ranch in Aspen, Colorado. Guests, including Oprah Winfrey, Oliver Stone and
Bruce Willis, were treated to activities including horse riding and baseball
during the weekend festivities. Costner took his new bride for a canoe ride on a
lake following the ceremony. The couple planned to honeymoon in Scotland [2].
Costner was registered as a Republican until the
1996 election, when he changed his registration to Independent. He supported
Democratic candidates in the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 Presidential elections;
however, he still prefers to be known as a "conservative".
Several of Costner's films have included a baseball
theme. They include Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For Love of the Game.
Costner has a love for baseball and has stated he loves to play baseball even
more than he loves to watch it. Costner plays regularly in celebrity golf
tournaments, including the annual BMW Pro-Am held each April in Greenville
County, South Carolina.
He has a house in Montecito, CA - near Santa
Barbara, CA. He lives here most of the year.
Filmography
Stacy's Knights (1982)
Chasing Dreams (1982)
Night Shift (1982)
Frances (1982)
Table for Five (1983)
The Big Chill (1983) (scenes deleted)
Testament (1983)
The Gunrunner (1984)
Fandango (1985)
Silverado (1985)
American Flyers (1985)
Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. (1986) (originally filmed in
1974)
Shadows Run Black (1986)
The Untouchables (1987)
No Way Out (1987)
Bull Durham (1988)
Field of Dreams (1989)
Revenge (1990) (actor and executive producer)
Dances With Wolves (1990) (actor, director and
producer)
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) (documentary)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) (actor,
producer)
JFK (1991)
Oliver Stone (1992) (documentary)
Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy (1992)
(documentary)
The Bodyguard (1992) (actor, producer)
Amazing Stories: Book One (1992), episode: The
Mission, in which he plays the captain of the plane
A Perfect World (1993)
A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
Wyatt Earp (1994) (actor, producer)
The War (1994)
Waterworld (1995) (actor, producer, and uncredited
director)
Tin Cup (1996)
Sean Connery, An Intimate Portrait (1997)
(documentary)
The Postman (1997) (director, producer, and actor)
Message in a Bottle (1999) (actor, producer)
For Love of the Game (1999)
Play It to the Bone (1999) (Cameo)
Thirteen Days (2000) (actor, producer)
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
Dragonfly (2002)
Open Range (2003) (actor, director, and producer)
The Upside of Anger (2005)
Rumor Has It (2005)
The Guardian (2006)
Mr. Brooks (2007) (currently filming)
The Tortilla Curtain (2006) (currently in
pre-production) (actor, producer)
Preceded by
Oliver Stone
for Born on the Fourth of July Academy Award for
Best Director
1990
for Dances with Wolves Succeeded by
Jonathan Demme
for The Silence of the Lambs
References
1. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000126/bio
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3692796.stm
****
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