Best Known As: The intense actor who wrote and starred in Pollock
Four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris is often cast in the movies as a thoughtful tough guy with a steely stare. A veteran character actor and sometime lead, his best-known early movies include The Right Stuff (1983, as astronaut John Glenn), Places in the Heart (1984, starring Sally Field) and The Abyss (1989, directed by James Cameron). A dramatic actor known for onscreen intensity, he has received three nominations as a supporting actor, for Apollo 13 (1995, as flight director Gene Kranz), The Truman Show (1998, starring Jim Carrey) and The Hours (2002, with Meryl Streep). Harris also earned an Oscar nomination for best actor for his performance as painter Jackson Pollock in the 2000 film Pollock, which also marked Harris's debut as a director. His other films include Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, with Jack Lemmon), Absolute Power (1997, starring Clint Eastwood), Enemy at the Gates (2001, with Jude Law) and A History of Violence (2005, starring Viggo Mortensen). Harris is married to actress Amy Madigan, with whom he has worked many times, including in the films Places in the Heart, Alamo Bay (1985), the TV movie Riders of the Purple Sage (1996) and Pollock.
Career Highlights: The Right Stuff, Places in the Heart, The Truman Show
First Major Screen Credit: Borderline (1980)
Biography
Bearing sharp, blue-eyed features and the outward demeanor of an everyday Joe, Ed Harris possesses a quiet, charismatic strength and intensity capable of electrifying the screen. During the course of his lengthy career, he has proven his talent repeatedly in roles both big and small, portraying characters both villainous and sympathetic.
Born Edward Allen Harris in Tenafly, NJ, on November 28, 1950, Harris was an athlete in high school and went on to spend two years playing football at Columbia University. His interest in acting developed after he transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he studied acting and gained experience in summer stock. Harris next attended the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a Fine Arts degree. He went on to find steady work in the West Coast theatrical world before moving to New York. In 1983, he debuted off-Broadway in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love in a part especially written for him. His performance won him an Obie for Best Actor. Three years later, he made his Broadway debut in George Firth's Precious Sons and was nominated for a Tony. During the course of his career, Harris has gone on to garner numerous stage awards from associations on both coasts.
Harris made his screen debut in 1977's made-for-television movie The Amazing Howard Hughes. The following year, he made his feature-film debut with a small role in Coma (1978), but his career didn't take off until director George Romero starred Harris in Knightriders (1981). The director also cast him in his next film, Creepshow (1982). Harris' big break as a movie star came in 1983 when he was cast as straight-arrow astronaut John Glenn in the film version of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Twelve years later, Harris would again enter the world of NASA, this time playing unsung hero Gene Krantz (and earning an Oscar nomination) in Ron Howard's Apollo 13.
The same year he starred in The Right Stuff, Harris further exhibited his range in his role as a psychopathic mercenary in Under Fire. The following year, he appeared in three major features, including the highly touted Places in the Heart. In addition to earning him positive notices, the film introduced him to his future wife, Amy Madigan, who also co-starred with him in Alamo Bay (1985). In 1989, Harris played one of his best-known roles in The Abyss (1989), bringing great humanity to the heroic protagonist, a rig foreman working on a submarine. He did further notable work in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and turned in a suitably creepy performance as Christof, the manipulative creator of Truman Burbank's world in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998). Harris earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work. The following year, he could be seen in The Third Miracle, starring as a Catholic priest who finds his faith sorely tested.
The new millennium found Harris' labor of love, the artist biopic Pollock, seeing the light of day after nearly a decade of development. Spending years painting and researching the modernist painter, Harris carefully and lovingly oversaw all aspects of the film, including directing, producing, and starring in the title role. The project served as a turning point in Harris' remarkable career, showing audiences and critics alike that there was more to the man of tranquil intensity than many may have anticipated; Harris was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his work. 2001 saw Harris as a German sniper with his targets set on Jude Law in the wartime suspense-drama Enemy at the Gates, and later as a bumbling Army captain in the irreverent Joaquin Phoenix vehicle Buffalo Soldiers. With his portrayal of a well known author succumbing to the ravages of AIDS in 2002's The Hours, Harris would recieve his fourth Oscar nominattion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Harris has been married to actress Amy Madigan since 1983. They have a daughter named Lily Dolores Harris born on May 3, 1993.
Career
Harris's first important film role was in Borderline with Charles Bronson. In Knightriders he played the king of a motorcycle-riding renaissance-fair troupe in a role modeled after King Arthur.
Harris made his cinema directing debut in 2000 with Pollock, in which he starred as the acclaimed American artist Jackson Pollock. He also has portrayed such diverse real-life characters as William Walker, a 19th Century American who appointed himself president of Nicaragua, in the film Walker; Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt in the Oliver Stone biopic Richard Nixon and composer Ludwig van Beethoven in the film Copying Beethoven.
Harris has directed a number of theater productions as well as having an active stage acting career. Most notably, he starred in the production of Neil LaBute's one-man play Wrecks at the Public Theater in New York City. Wrecks premiered at the Everyman Theater in Cork, Ireland and then in the US at the Public Theater in New York.
Currently, Harris and wife Amy Madigan are starring together in Ash Adams' upcoming indie crime drama Once Fallen, alongside Brian Presley, Sharon Gless, Adams himself, and a large all-star cast. It is set for release in 2009.
Protests
Harris, along with good friend Nick Nolte and many others at the 71st Academy Awards, refused to stand up or applaud when Elia Kazan, who had informed on fellow filmmakers during the McCarthy Era, received his Lifetime Achievement award.
2006: Harris received the Peter J. Owens Award,[8] which honors an actor whose work exemplifies brilliance, independence and integrity. A Flash of Green[9] was screened at the festival in his honor.
