Jeff Bridges (b. Dec. 4, 1949, Los Angeles.)
To me, he'll always be The Dude (Duder, His Dudeness, El Duderino), but a really great actor (and popstar?!). He's earned a reputation among critics as one of the most under-appreciated actors of our time. Got a verry verry heavy graphical, but cool web site) where he promotes The End Hunger Network.
Bio
Jeff Lebowski, damn, I mean Bridges is the son of 'Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue' (late) actor Lloyd, and is brother of Beau, Jeff Bridges. He is married to photographer Susan Bridges née Geston, but apparently in relationship with Candy Clark (actress model)? I dunno...
He started his film debut quite early when he acted like a baby when he was a baby of four months in 1950's The Company She Keeps. At the age of 8 he appeared occasionally in his father's Sea Hunt series, and also made appearances on early-'60s variety program The Lloyd Bridges Show, obviously also done by his dad. He won a Best Supporting Actor nomination at 22 for his engaging role as a Texas roughneck in Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 drama The Last Picture Show and at 25 he was was again nominated by the Academy, for his performance as a clever drifter in the 1974 Clint Eastwood flick Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, directed and written by Michael Cimino.
Bridges' involvement in a series of quality projects into the mid-'70s — Fat City, Bad Company, The Iceman Cometh, The Last American Hero, and Hearts of the West — kept him basking in the spotlight. But a spate of ill-conceived films thereafter somewhat tarnished his leading-man patina: the execrable 1976 King Kong remake and Cimino's cinematic disaster of historic proportions, Heaven's Gate, were just the two most obvious missteps. Bridges, who had flirted with pot, LSD, est, transcendental meditation, Cybill Shepherd, Candy Clark, and Valerie Perrine, finally settled down at 28 with photographer Susan Geston, whom he met on the set of Rancho Deluxe in 1975. They have three daughters.
Bridges blasted out of his career lull with the back-to-back 1984 releases of two highly successful films: the love-triangle suspenser Against All Odds, which paired him in life-threatening romance with Rachel Ward, hit with audiences; and John Carpenter's Starman, in which he played an Earthbound alien who assumes the form of a recently deceased human to evade capture, garnered him another Oscar nomination. Under full steam, Bridges powered through one of his biggest (and only) box-office smashes, the courtroom drama Jagged Edge(1985), which he followed up with the unsatisfying detective thriller 8 Million Ways to Die (1986) and the murder mystery The Morning After (1986). One of the best showcases for his naturalistic talent of his career, Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), positioned Bridges as a visionary car manufacturer beleaguered by corrupt politicians and the machinations of the Big Three automakers.
Now considered one of the most talented but least rewarded movie stars (Janet Maslin of The New York Times has pronounced him "the most underappreciated great actor of his generation"), Bridges' performances in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), the Terry Gilliam fantasy The Fisher King (1991), Fearless (1993), and the well-received indie film American Heart (1993; his producing debut) were loved by critics but snubbed by the Academy. In 1996, he donned dapper academic tweed to play Barbra Streisand's reluctant lover in the treacly romance The Mirror Has Two Faces. The year 1998 witnessed the release of the Coen brothers' inspired farce The Big Lebowski, in which Bridges charmed as a hirsute aging hipster who gets mistaken for a millionaire with some serious debts. On the darker side, he played a college professor who suspects his neighbors of singularly unpatriotic activities in the creepy summer 1999 conspiracy thriller Arlington Road. He rounded out the year with roles in the Albert Brooks comedy The Muse and the film adaptation of the Sam Shepard play Simpatico.
The year 2000 marked an intriguing career move, as the triple Oscar nominee released a moderately well-received debut pop album, Be Here Soon, on the Ramp label, which he co-founded with former Doobie Brother Michael McDonald.
(Sources: Mr. Showbiz: http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/jeffbridges/content/bio.html, IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Bridges,+Jeff, E! Online: http://www.eonline.com/Facts/People/Bio/0,128,2136,00.html, CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Music/03/28/jeff.bridges/)