Bruce Dern  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Tumblr Wikisource YouTube Shop Featured: A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)

Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an Academy Award-nominated American screen actor. Dern is the father of actress Laura Dern and was formerly married to actress Diane Ladd.

Biography

Early life

Dern was born in Chicago, Illinois to John Dern and Jean MacLeish. His paternal grandfather was George Dern, a former Utah governor and Secretary of War, his uncle was poet Archibald MacLeish, and his godfather was well-known politician Adlai Stevenson.

Career

One of Dern's first film roles was in the Sydney Pollack picture They Shoot Horses, Don't They? in 1969. He played the enemy to John Wayne's character in The Cowboys, and starred along with Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens. Dern is generally regarded as a character actor, and has a reputation of playing unstable and villainous characters. His best-known role may be that of Freeman Lowell, the caretaker of Earth's last forests in Silent Running (1972), but other memorable roles include The Trip (1967).