|
David Strathairn
|
| David Strathairn | |
|---|---|
| Born | David Russell Strathairn January 26, 1949 San Francisco, California, United States |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Spouse(s) | Logan Goodman (1980-present) |
David Russell Strathairn (born January 26, 1949) is an American actor.
Contents |
Life
Strathairn was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a physician.1 He is of Scottish descent through his paternal grandfather, Thomas Scott Strathairn, a native of Crieff. He is of Native Hawaiian ancestry through his paternal grandmother, Lei.23 Strathairn attended Redwood High School in Larkspur, California and graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1970. He studied at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in Venice, Florida4 and briefly worked as a clown in a traveling circus.citation needed
He is married to Logan Goodman Strathairn, a nurse. They have two sons and live in the mid-Hudson Valley area near Poughkeepsie, New York. Their son, Tay, is an actor and musician who plays jazz piano. He has recently been a part of such bands as Dawes and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as a keyboardist. Tay appeared in John Sayles' films Eight Men Out (as Bucky) and Lone Star (as Young Sam).45 Their other son, Ebbe, is a recent graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing a career in architecture.
Career
Strathairn was Academy Award-nominated for his portrayal of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow in the biopic Good Night, and Good Luck, which explored Murrow's clash with Senator Joseph McCarthy over McCarthy's Communist "witch-hunt" in the 1950s. Strathairn received Best Actor Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and Academy Award nominations for his performance. Other notable film roles include his portrayals of the title character in Harrison's Flowers (2000); the wisecracking blind techie in Sneakers (1992); Joe St. George in Dolores Claiborne (1995); Theseus, Duke of Athens, in the 1999 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream; and corrupt baseball player Eddie Cicotte in Eight Men Out (1988).
Strathairn is often regarded as a character actor, appearing in supporting roles in many independent and Hollywood films. In this capacity, he has co-starred in Twisted as Ashley Judd's psychiatrist; in The River Wild as Meryl Streep's husband; as Tom Cruise's jailbird brother in The Firm; and as Kim Basinger's pimp in L.A. Confidential.
He has worked frequently with his Williams College classmate and director John Sayles, beginning with his film debut in Return of the Secaucus 7, and including the films Passion Fish, Matewan, Limbo and City of Hope, for which Strathairn won the Independent Spirit Award. Alongside Sayles, he played one of the Men in Black in the 1983 film The Brother from Another Planet Several years later, Strathairn created the role of Edwin Booth with Maryann Plunkett in a workshop production of Booth! A House Divided, by W. Stuart McDowell, at the Players in New York City.6
His television work includes a wide range of roles: "Moss", the bookselling nebbish on the critically-acclaimed The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd; Captain Keller, the father of Helen Keller in the 2000 remake of The Miracle Worker; and a far-out (both figuratively and literally) televangelist in Paradise, the pilot episode for a TV series on Showtime that was not successful.7 Strathairn also had a recurring role on the hit TV drama The Sopranos. Strathairn also starred in the second season episode, Out Where the Buses Don't run, in Miami Vice
Among Strathairn's recent films are: We Are...Marshall, a 2006 film about the rebirth of Marshall University's football program after the 1970 plane crash that killed most of the team's members; and Hereafter, set in the aftermath of the 2004 Sumatran tsunami, directed by Michael Patwin (in pre-production).8 In 2006 he did a campaign ad for then congressional candidate (now, senator-appointee) Kirsten Gillibrand. He reprised his role as Edward R. Murrow in a speech similar to the one from Good Night, and Good Luck, but was altered to reference Gillibrand's opponent John Sweeney.citation needed
Strathairn plays the lead role opposite Andrew Walker in the 2007 independent film, Steel Toes, a film by David Gow (writer/co-director/producer)and Mark Adam (co-director/DOP/editor). The film is based on Gow's stage play "Cherry Docs", in which Strathairn starred at its American premiere at the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia.
He played a lead role opposite Matt Damon in the summer 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum and appeared in Paramount Pictures' children's film The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) as Arthur Spiderwick. Strathairn appeared in the American Experience PBS anthology series documentary, The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer, (2009) a biography of the physicist. He also plays William Flynn, an F.B.I. agent dealing with anarchism in 1920s New York City, in No God, No Master.
Theater
Strathairn is an accomplished stage actor and has performed over thirty theatrical roles. Most recently, he performed several roles in stage plays by 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. He played Stanley in two consecutive New York Classic Stage Company (CSC) productions of Pinter's 1957 play The Birthday Party, directed by Carey Perloff (since 1992 artistic director of the American Conservatory Theatre), in 19889 and 1989;10 the dual roles of prison Officer and Prisoner in Pinter's 1989 play Mountain Language (in a double bill with the second CSC Rep production of The Birthday Party);11 Edwin Booth in a workshop production also featuring Angela Goethals of Booth: A House Divided by W. Stuart McDowell at the Players in 1989; Kerner, in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood (1994); and Devlin, opposite Lindsay Duncan's Rebecca, in Pinter's 1996 two-hander Ashes to Ashes in the 1999 New York premiere by the Roundabout Theatre Company.112
Political involvement
Strathairn narrated a biographical video that was aired to introduce Barack Obama prior to his acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.13
Filmography
References
- ^ a b David Strathairn Film Reference bio
- ^ "Secret Scottish Roots Of Best Actor Nominee", The Sunday Mail
- ^ "David Strathairn Finds the Spotlight"
- ^ a b Full biography of "David Strathairn", Yahoo! Movies, Copyright © 2007, accessed August 7, 2007.
- ^ Tay Strathairn at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ History of the Bristol Riverside Theatre
- ^ Paradise (2004) (TV) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ David Strathairn at the Internet Movie Database, accessed August 7, 2007.
- ^ Performance revs. by Susan Hollis Merritt, "The Birthday Party" (CSC Repertory Theatre, New York, 17 April 1988, 12 Apr. 1988–22 May 1988) and Bernard Dukore, "The Birthday Party" (CSC Repertory Theatre, New York, April–May 1988), The Pinter Review 2.1 (1988): 66-70; 71-73. (Cover photograph features Strathairn in his role as Stanley.)
- ^ 1989 CSC production, HaroldPinter.org (official site), accessed August 7, 2007.
- ^ Susan Hollis Merritt, "A Conversation with Carey Perloff, Bill Moor, Peter Riegert, Jean Stapleton, and David Strathairn: After Matinee of Mountain Language and The Birthday Party by CSC Repertory Ltd., Bruno's, New York, 12 Nov. 1989", The Pinter Review: Annual Essays 1989 (TPR) (Tampa: U of Tampa P, 1989) 59-84 (interview); cf. performance rev. by Francis Gillen, "Mountain Language, The Birthday Party" TPR 93-97. (Cover photograph features Strathairn and Stapleton in their roles as a prison Officer and the Elderly Woman in Mountain Language; his other role, the Prisoner, is the Elderly Woman's son.)
- ^ Performance revs. by Katherine H. Burkman, "Ashes to Ashes in New York: Roundabout Theatre Company at the Gramercy Theatre, March 30, 1999" and by Susan Hollis Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes in New York: Roundabout Theatre Company, Gramercy Theatre, New York, 3 April 1999", The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 1997 and 1998 (Tampa: U of Tampa P, 1999) 154-59.
- ^ Greeley Tribune (2008). Obama uses language of hope, calls for action. Retrieved August 29, 2008.
External links
 |
Wikinews has related news: Many SAG Awards presenters announced |