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William Mapother

 
Actor: William Mapother
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Apr 17, 1965 in Louisville, Kentucky
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: 2000s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Thriller
  • Career Highlights: In the Bedroom, The Grudge, Hurt
  • First Major Screen Credit: In the Bedroom (2001)

Biography

William Mapother has staked out a peripheral film career thanks to his cousin, Tom Cruise. With haunting eyes and a brooding demeanor, Mapother was a memorable choice to play Marisa Tomei's vicious ex-husband in In the Bedroom (2001), his most recognizable role. Cruise gave the Kentucky native his start with production assistant jobs on Cocktail and Rain Man (both 1988), then a small role in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), where he also worked as the actor's assistant. Mapother has continued to appear in the margins of Cruise films, ranging from Magnolia (1999) to Minority Report (2002), as well as undertaking a larger role in the Cruise-produced Without Limits (1998). ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: William Mapother
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William Mapother

Mapother at the South by Southwest festival, 2007
Born William Reibert Mapother, Jr.
April 17, 1965 (1965-04-17) (age 44)
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupation Actor
Years active 1989–present
Official website

William Reibert Mapother, Jr.[1] (pronounced /ˈmeɪpɒθər/; born April 17, 1965) is an American actor and former teacher, perhaps best known for his role as Ethan Rom on the television series Lost.

Contents

Personal life

Mapother was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Louisa and William Reibert Mapother, Sr.[2] He is a first cousin of actor Tom Cruise (as his father and Cruise's father were brothers). Mapother has appeared in at least five movies starring Cruise. He had a cameo role in Minority Report, opposite Cruise, as well as a supporting roles in Mission: Impossible II, Born of the Fourth of July, and Magnolia, and an uncredited role in Vanilla Sky. Mapother has two sisters, Katherine and Amy (an occasional actress, born February 17, 1974), both born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father was an attorney and bankruptcy consultant and was a judge in Louisville, between 1967 and 1970; William Reibert, Sr., died on June 22, 2006, after fighting lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis.[1]

Mapother graduated from the University of Notre Dame as an English major, and then taught high school in East Los Angeles for three years before becoming an actor. He completed a Church of Scientology course in 1989.[3] However, unlike his cousin he has since then not followed through on the course.

Career

Mapother has become widely known as a character actor, who sometimes plays scary or otherwise dark characters. Despite playing a pivotal role in Todd Field's In The Bedroom, Mapother is perhaps more widely known as Ethan Rom in the TV show Lost. The character was killed off early in the first season, but since then has appeared in six episodes mainly through flashbacks and once due to time travel. This brings the total amount of Lost episodes he appeared in up to ten.

Mapother has also had considerable roles in a series of independent films, such as The Lather Effect, Moola and the upcoming Hurt, in which he stars alongside Melora Walters as the 'reclusive' brother-in-law of Walters' character. Mapother starred in The Burrowers as a former Indian fighter who joins a posse to help find missing white settlers, only to discover that the hunters have become the hunted.

In September 2007 he was elected to a three-year term on the National Board of Directors for the Screen Actors Guild.

Filmography[4]

References

  1. ^ a b William Mapother Tribute to William Sr.
  2. ^ William Mapother Biography (1965-)
  3. ^ Church of Scientology, Celebrity magazing, Issue 228, July 1989
  4. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0544611/

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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