Jeff Bridges Biography

Jeff BridgesFormer United States Coast Guard and current Academy Award nominated actor Jeff Bridges is best known for his liberal political views and his performance as Jeffrey The Dude Lebowski in 1998's The Big Lebowski. Premier Magazine ranked his character as number 55 in the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.Bridges, whose full name is Jeffrey Leon Bridges, was born on December 4, 1949, to parents Dorothy Simpson and actor Lloyd Bridges.He landed his first major acting role in the 1971 drama, The Last Picture Show. His skill at portraying Duane Jackson earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.Bridges starred in two more movies over the next two years before receiving another Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance opposite Clint Eastwood in the 1974 crime drama Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.In 1976, he appeared in the two movies and then didn t appear in any big-screen films for three years.In 1979, he starred in Winter Kills and followed that with the lead role in the 1980 political thriller, Cutters Way.In 1982, he played the part of Kevin Flynn, a video game programmer, in the sci-fi thriller, Tron. Two years later Bridges starred as the alien, Starman, in another sci-fi movie, Starman (1984). His role as the alien garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.The same year he switched acting styles to portray the sexy Terry Brogan in the thriller, Against All Odds.Several character roles followed in movies like The Vanishing in 1993, where he played a psychopathic college professor; The Muse in 1999, where he played a carefree screenwriter, and The Contender in 2000, where he played a standoffish American president. Bridges received another Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in The Contender.In 2000 Bridges narrated the documentary, Raising the Mammoth and followed that with another documentary narration in 2002 with Lost in La Mancha, a story about Don Quixote.In 2006 he landed the leading role in the sport drama Stick It as gymnastic coach, Burt Vickerman.In 2007 he will be appearing in the comedy A Dog Year about a man suffering from a midlife crisis who takes in a dog even crazier than he is.Bridges shoots still photographs as a hobby and has published his pictures online and in the 2003 book Pictures. He has been married to wife Susan Geston since June 5, 1977, and the couple has three daughters together: Isabelle, born in 1981; Jessica, born in 1983; and Hayley, born in 1987.