| Bruce Dern | |
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| Birth name | Bruce MacLeish Dern |
| Born | June 4 1936 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Marie Dean Diane Ladd (1960-1969) Andrea Beckett (1969-present) |
Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an Academy Award-nominated American screen actor.
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Biography
Personal life
Dern was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Jean (née MacLeish) and John Dern.[1] His paternal grandfather was George Dern, a former Utah governor and Secretary of War, and his uncle was poet Archibald MacLeish. His godfather was well-known politician Adlai Stevenson and his godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt. Dern is the father of actress Laura Dern and was formerly married to actress Diane Ladd.
Career
One of Dern's first film roles was in the Sydney Pollack picture They Shoot Horses, Don't They? in 1969. He played the enemy and killer of John Wayne's character in The Cowboys, and starred along with Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens. Dern is generally regarded as a character actor, and has a reputation of playing unstable and villainous characters. His best-known role may be that of Freeman Lowell, the caretaker of Earth's last forests in Silent Running (1972), but other memorable roles include Tom Buchanan in Robert Redford's The Great Gatsby and Capt. Bob Hyde in Coming Home, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. His most recent effort is the independent movie The Astronaut Farmer and a supporting role on the HBO's series, Big Love.
Quotes
- "I'm only too proud to say that I've NEVER had ANY discipline problems with Laura (Dern, his daughter and fellow actress). In fact, I never needed to lay a hand on her, because Diane (Ladd, his wife and another fellow actress) was so much better with that stuff than I was."
- "I'm the only bad guy to ever kill John Wayne."
(This statement, however, is not true. Wayne's character was killed by the bartender in The Shootist and by Japanese snipers in Sands of Iwo Jima and The Fighting Seabees. The bartender, one of the snipers, and Dern are the only ones to be seen killing Wayne on film. Wayne's characters also died twice by drowning in Wake of the Red Witch and Reap the Wild Wind and once by suicide after being stabbed in The Alamo.)
Trivia
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When filming "That Championship Season" in the Scranton, Pa., area, Dern, an avid runner, was often seen running in the countryside outside the city. His image also stuck around Scranton after the filming was long finished, as billboards for the mayoral campaign of his character, George Sitkowski, remained up for months, most notably down the street from the city's former train station, which was then diplapidated, but is now the city's top hotel.
Filmography
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