Award-winning actor Kevin Kline is a familiar face to audiences both on the stage and screen.
Born October 24, 1947, in St. Louis, MO, Kline began his professional acting career as a member of John Houseman's, The Acting Company. He toured the US, performing such roles as Romeo and Hamlet, in Shakespeare's plays, and debuted on Broadway in 1972. In 1978 he won his first Tony award for his performance in On the Twentieth Century. In 1980, he won his second Tony for his role in The Pirates of Penzance, a role he reprised on the screen three years later.
Kline first came to films in the highly acclaimed performance as Nathan Landau in Sophie's Choice, a performance which won him a Golden Globe nomination. From there, he went on to make the very popular movies, The Big Chill and Silverado, both with screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. Kline's role as Otto West, the psychopathic loon, in A Fish Called Wanda, won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988, and proved that he was equally talented in dramatic and comedic roles.
Kline, Kevin (b. 1947), actor. The lanky, very physical performer was born in St. Louis and studied at Indiana University and at Juilliard. Much of his earliest work was done in a variety of roles with the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Acting Company. Kline first won praise as the pompous fiancé Bruce Granit in the musical On the Twentieth Century (1978) and as the unsettled writer Paul in Loose Ends (1979). He later undertook such classical roles as Richard III, Hamlet, Henry V, Benedict, Ivanov, Bluntschli, the Duke in Measure for Measure, and Trigorin in The Seagull, as well as the flamboyant Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance (1980). Regardless of his great success in films, Kline has returned regularly to the theatre.
"I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera -- both of which I did as soon as I left the [Acting] Company and was starving."
One of the most versatile and respected actors of his generation, Kevin Kline has made a name for himself on the stage and screen. Equally comfortable in comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of those rare actors whose onscreen characterizations are not overshadowed by his offscreen personality; remarkably free of ego, he has impressed both critics and audiences as a performer in the purest sense of the word.
A product of the American Midwest, Kline was born in Saint Louis, MO, on October 24, 1947. He became active in theater while growing up in the Saint Louis suburbs, performing in a number of school productions. He continued to act while a student at Indiana University at Bloomington, and following graduation, moved to New York, where he was accepted at the Juilliard School. In 1972, Kline added professional experience to his formal training when he joined New York's Acting Company, led at the time by John Houseman. He toured the country with the company, performing Shakespeare and winning particular acclaim for his portrayals of Romeo and Hamlet. This praise translated to the New York stage a few years later, when Kline won Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his role in the 1978 Broadway production of On the Twentieth Century. Three years later, he earned these same honors for his work in the Broadway production of The Pirates of Penzance (he later reprised his role for the musical's 1983 film adaptation).
After a stint on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, Kline made his film debut in Alan Pakula's 1982 Sophie's Choice. It was an inarguably auspicious beginning: aside from the wide acclaim lavished on the film, Kline earned a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Nathan Landau. The following year, he again struck gold, starring in The Big Chill, Lawrence Kasdan's seminal exploration of baby-boomer anxiety. Two years later, Kline and Kasdan enjoyed another successful collaboration with Silverado, an homage to the Westerns of the 1950s and '60s.
After turning in a strong performance as a South African newspaper editor in Cry Freedom, Richard Attenborough's powerful 1987 apartheid drama, Kline won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his relentlessly hilarious portrayal of dimwitted petty thief Otto West in A Fish Called Wanda (1988). The award gave him international recognition and established him as an actor as adept at comedy as he was at drama, something Kline again proved in Soapdish; the 1991 comedy was a major disappointment, but Kline nonetheless managed to turn in another excellent performance, earning a Golden Globe nomination.
The '90s saw Kline -- now a married man, having wed actress Phoebe Cates in 1989 -- continue to tackle a range of diverse roles. In 1992, he could be seen playing Douglas Fairbanks in Chaplin, while the next year he gave a winning portrayal of two men -- one, the U.S. President, the other, his reluctant stand-in -- in Dave, earning another Golden Globe nomination. Kline then appeared in one of his most high-profile roles to date, starring as a sexually conflicted schoolteacher in Frank Oz's 1997 comedy In & Out. His portrayal earned him another Golden Globe nomination, as well as a number of other accolades (including an MTV Award nomination for Best Kiss with Tom Selleck).
Further praise followed for Kline the next year, when he turned in a stellar dramatic performance as an adulterous family man in 1973 Connecticut in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. He then turned back to Shakespeare, portraying Bottom in the star-studded 1999 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His work in that film was so well received that it helped to overshadow his involvement in Wild Wild West, one of the most critically lambasted and financially disappointing films of the year.
2001 found Kline returning to straight drama in the introspective Life as a House. The actor continued in this niche the following year, starring as an unorthodox prep school teacher in The Emperor's Club. After playing songwriter Cole Porter in the 2004 biopic De-Lovely, Kline began work on his return to comedy, a remake of the classic The Pink Panther, with him cast opposite Steve Martin.
Kline played Guy Noir in Robert Altman's film adaptation of the radio program Prairie Home Companion, and fulfilled the hopes of Shakespeare enthusiasts around the world when he appeared in the Kenneth Branagh directed adaptation of As You Like It, marking the first time the two respected Shakespearean performers collaborated on a work by the Bard. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Kline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Peggy and Robert Joseph Kline.[1] His father was a classical music lover and an amateur opera singer who owned and operated The Record Bar, a record store in St. Louis that opened in the early '40s, and sold toys during the '60s and '70s;[1][2] his father's family also owned Kline's Inc., a department store chain. Kline has described his mother as the "dramatic theatrical character in our family."[3][4] Kline's father was born into a family of German Jewish ancestry and was an agnostic; Kline's Irish-American mother, the daughter of an emigrant from County Louth, was Catholic.[3] Kline and his siblings were raised Catholic.
Kline graduated from the Catholic Saint Louis Priory School in 1965; in 1997, the school named its new auditorium the Kevin Kline Theater, and Kline did a benefit performance of selections from Shakespeare at the dedication. He attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he began as an aspiring classical pianist. After joining the on-campus theater group "Vest Pocket Players" as an undergraduate, he fell in love with the theater and switched to acting, graduating from IU in 1970.[3]
Career
In 1970, Kline was awarded a scholarship to the newly formed Drama Division at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, he joined with fellow Juilliard graduates, including Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers, and formed the City Center Acting Company (now The Acting Company), under the aegis of John Houseman. The Company traveled across the U.S. performing Shakespeare's plays, other classical works, and the musical The Robber Bridegroom, founding one of the most widely praised groups in American repertory theatre.[3]
In 1976, Kline left The Acting Company and settled in New York City, doing a brief stint as the character "Woody Reed" in the now-defunct soap opera Search for Tomorrow. He followed this with a return to the stage in 1977 to play Clym Yeobright opposite Donna Theodore as Eustacia Vye in The Hudson Guild Theater production of Dance on a Country Grave, Kelly Hamilton's musical version of Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native. In 1978 he played the small role of "Bruce Granit", a matinée idol caricature, in Harold Prince's On the Twentieth Century, for which he won his first Tony Award.[3] In 1981, Kline appeared with rock diva Linda Ronstadt and singer Rex Smith in the New York Shakespeare Festival's Central Park production of The Pirates of Penzance, winning another Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, for his comically dashing portrayal of the Pirate King. In 1983, he played the role in a film version of the musical, also with Ronstadt, Smith and Angela Lansbury, which had a limited theatrical release.[3]
In the ensuing years, Kline appeared many times in New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Shakespeare, including starring roles in Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, two productions of Hamlet (one of which he also directed) and a Tony-nominated Falstaff in a production that combined the two parts of Henry IV.
Film reviewers have widely praised his talent. Newsday said Kline "has proved himself to be one of the most talented and versatile American actors of his generation."[7]
He played the title role in King Lear at the Public Theatre, and took the lead role in a Broadway production of Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Jennifer Garner. That production was forced to close temporarily after only eleven performances as a result of the Broadway stagehands' strike,[8] but subsequently reopened. Cyrano was filmed in 2008 and aired as part of PBS's Great Performances series in January 2009.[9] In January 2008, Kline won a Screen Actors Guild award for his portrayal of Jaques in Kenneth Branagh's film As You Like It, adapted from Shakespeare's play. The film premiered theatrically in 2006 in Europe. It bypassed theatres and was sent straight to HBO in the U.S. Kline's film The Conspirator premiered during the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 and was described as an "old fashioned historical thriller". It was well received by most critics. Kline will also star in the 2012 comedy Darling Companion alongside Diane Keaton.
In December 2004 Kline became the 2,272nd recipient of a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame,[10] located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.
Personal life
Throughout the 1970s, Kline was involved in a long-term relationship with his Juilliard classmate Patti LuPone. They separated and reconnected many times before finally ending their relationship in 1978. Their relationship is precisely detailed in LuPone's memoir, Patti LuPone: A Memoir.
Kline married actress Phoebe Cates, 15 years his junior, in 1989. The couple live in New York City and they have two children: Owen Joseph Kline[11] (born October 14, 1991), who had a featured role in The Squid and the Whale, and Greta Simone Kline[11] (born March 21, 1994). After his son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, Kline became active with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In November 2004, he was presented with the JDRF's Humanitarian of the Year award by Meryl Streep for his volunteer efforts on behalf of the organization.
The Kevin Kline Awards honor theatre professionals in St. Louis in a wide array of categories, which include best actor and actress, set design, choreography, and original play. The first awards ceremony took place on March 20, 2006.
Filmography
Kline and wife Phoebe Cates at the Academy Awards Governor's Ball party, 1989
^ "The Risk Taker Kevin Kline will try just about anything, emotionally and physically, to make his characters fly," by Lynn Darling, Newsday, 07-13-88
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