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Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an Academy Award-winning American film actor, director and producer. He is well-known for his role as Lt. John J. Dunbar in the film Dances with Wolves (1990), which won seven Academy Awards, including (Best Picture and Best Director). A two-time Academy Award-winner, this handsome, amiable leading man with a stoic, deadpan style made his now-infamous major film debut in director Lawrence Kasdan's "The Big Chill" (1983). Though his scenes ended up being excised nearly completely, the cutting room disaster only delayed Costner’s rise to superstardom. In recompense, Kasdan gave him the prominent, flashy role of the wild gunfighter, Jake, in the action-packed neo-modern western, "Silverado" (1985). Costner’s frequent collaborations with Kasdan as well as directors Ron Shelton and Kevin Reynolds yielded an impressive string of hits through to the 1990s, cementing his status as one of Hollywood’s top leading men. Equally comfortable in variety of genres, Costner’s aura of straightforward common virtue earned him comparisons with Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart. While the superstar’s popularity took somewhat of a dip at the onset of the new millennium, the multi-talented Costner mounted a comeback mid-decade, appearing in no less than five features including the romantic comedy “Rumor Has It” (2005), the aquatic action-drama “The Guardian” (2006) and the psychological thriller, “Mr. Brooks” (2007). Costner was born in Lynwood, California, the youngest of the three sons (the middle of whom died at birth) of Sharon Rae (née Tedrick), a welfare worker, and William Costner, an electrician and later utilities executive. He has German, Irish and Cherokee ancestry (his Oklahoma-born paternal grandfather was half Cherokee). Costner was raised Baptist. He attended elementary school at McKevette School in Santa Paula, California, Cabrillo Jr. High School and Buena High in Ventura, California. A poor student, Costner enjoyed sports in spite of his slight stature, and took piano lessons, wrote poetry and sang in the First Baptist Choir. Born in Lynwood, CA on Jan. 18, 1955, Kevin Michael Costner was the youngest son of power company worker William Costner and his wife, Sharon. Though an unremarkable student, Costner grew up to be an excellent athlete. In addition to being an all-around sportsman, Costner’s parents made sure that their son received a regular weekly dose of culture by enrolling him in piano lessons and even the church choir. Because of his father’s work, Costner spent a good portion of childhood moving from city to city, up and down the California coast. Some time around the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, William Costner retired, settling his family down in Visalia, CA. After graduating from Villa Park High School in 1973, Costner enrolled at California State University, Fullerton where he majored in business and became a member – and later president – of the Delta Chi Fraternity. While his grades were less than stellar, Costner did, however, manage to leave college with three important things: his bachelor’s degree, a blushing new bride and last, but not least, a newfound love of acting. Spending his teenage years in various parts of California as his father's career progressed, Costner lived in Orange County, then in Visalia (Tulare County) attending Mt. Whitney High School, and finally graduated from Villa Park High School in Villa Park, California in 1973. He went on to earn a B.A. in business from California State University, Fullerton in 1978, where he was a member and President of the Delta Chi Fraternity and met bride-to-be Cindy Silva. Costner became interested in acting while in college, and on graduation married Cindy. The couple honeymooned in Puerto Vallarta, and on the return plane journey had a chance encounter with actor and fellow passenger Richard Burton, and struck up a conversation. Burton advised the young man that if he wanted to pursue acting, he should give up everything else completely and go after it. Having agreed to undertake a job as a marketing executive on return, with the support of his wife Costner began taking acting lessons five nights a week. His marketing job lasted 30 days. He took work which allowed him to develop his acting skills via tuition, including working on fishing boats, as a cow rider, and giving smashing lessons of stars' Hollywood homes to support the couple while he also made the audition rounds. Costner made his film debut at age 19, in the 1974 film, Sizzle Beach, U.S.A., although the film was not released until 1986 after he became a star. He appeared in a commercial for the Apple Lisa in 1983. He was cast that year in The Big Chill and filmed several scenes that were planned as flashbacks, but they never made it to the final cut. His role was that of Alex, the friend who committed suicide, the event that brings the rest of the cast together. All that is seen of him are his slashed wrists as the mortician dresses his corpse in the movie's opening scenes. Costner was a friend of director Lawrence Kasdan, who promised the actor a role in a future project. That became 1985's Silverado and a breakout role for Costner. He also starred that year in the smaller films Fandango and American Flyers. It was while returning from his Puerto Vallarta honeymoon in 1978, that Costner had a chance encounter with actor Richard Burton who was on the same flight. Striking up a conversation, it was the legendary thespian who inspired Costner to pursue his dream of acting full-time. With the support of his new wife, Cindy, Costner began taking acting lessons five nights a week, while working as a marketing rep by day. Though the marketing job lasted just one month, Costner continued to support himself and his wife by taking on a variety of odd jobs. While making the auditioning rounds, Costner worked at various times as a fisherman, a truck driver, and even a Hollywood tour guide. After kicking around for a few years in bit parts and low-budget dramas, Costner almost landed his big break when he was cast in writer-director Lawrence Kasdan’s seminal 1983 dramedy, “The Big Chill.” A melancholic coming-of-age drama about the baby boomer generation, “The Big Chill” starred an ensemble cast of talented, but largely unknown young actors, including Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, Meg Tilly and Mary Kay Place. Cast in the central role of Alex, the dead friend whose funeral opens the film, Costner was actually supposed to be a much bigger character than he ended up being. Originally, Alex was to have appeared throughout the movie in a series of flashbacks, showing him as the metaphorical glue that bonded these seven disparate friends together. Unfortunately, when the movie was screened for test audiences, many complained that the flashbacks were intrusive to the drama already in progress. Bowing to studio pressure, Kasdan reluctantly cut all of Costner’s scenes from the movie – though one brief shot survives, of Costner lying in the casket. Kasdan felt so guilty about cutting Costner’s scenes, however, that he promised the young actor the lead in his next film, whatever and whenever it would be. True to his word, three years later, Costner headlined an all-star cast in Kasdan’s 1985 western, “Silverado.” While the movie did not make him an immediate star, it successfully got Costner’s handsome mug out there, and would mark the beginning of a steady rise. Costner’s career would seriously take lift-off about a year later, when he did two highly regarded movies, back-to-back. The first was director Roger Donaldson’s “No Way Out” (1987) – a taut remake of the 1948 neo-noir thriller “The Big Clock” starring Ray Milland. The second was director Brian DePalma’s long-awaited big screen remake of “The Untouchables” (1987). With his easygoing charm and relatable everyman persona, Costner proved to be a perfect fit to play straight-arrow lawman, Eliot Ness. A huge commercial success when it was released, “The Untouchables” put Costner’s career into maximum overdrive. Full-blown movie star status for Costner arrived in 1987 when he starred as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and in the leading role of the thriller No Way Out. He solidified his A-list status in the baseball-themed films Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. Costner’s career continued to soar to new heights with his next two pictures. The first, “Bull Durham” (1988) would mark Costner as a bankable romantic lead. Directed by Ron Shelton, the picture cast Costner as Crash Davis, an aging minor league baseball player who starts a sizzling romance with a baseball groupie, Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon). Nominated for an Oscar, the hugely successful “Bull Durham” signaled a turning point in Costner’s career. It also established a theme that Costner would re-visit again in his next movie – baseball. If “Bull Durham” was the actor’s opening pitch to stardom, then his follow-up, “Field of Dreams” (1989), was definitely a second-inning grand slam. A touching tale about an Iowa corn farmer (Costner) who receives a spiritual command to build a baseball field in his backyard cornfield, “Field of Dreams” plumbed unexpected depths, touching on the themes of regret, family, father-son relationships, and of course, following one’s dreams. Nominated for three Oscars, “Field of Dreams” was named one of the best films of 1989 by critic Roger Ebert. Costner's greatest success came with the epic Dances with Wolves (1990). He directed and starred in the film and served as one of its producers. The film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including two for him personally (Best Picture and Best Director). He followed this with Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (1991), the Oliver Stone-directed JFK (1991), The Bodyguard (1992) and Clint Eastwood's A Perfect World (1993), all of which provided huge box office or critical acclaim. Costner’s career hit a stratospheric peak in the early 1990s, when he made an assured directing debut with the richly detailed – if a bit over-long – "Dances With Wolves" (1990). A surprise blockbuster, the film was a landmark in the representation of Native American-Indians in Hollywood. It went on to win seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Costner. Firmly established as one of the biggest box-office draws in town, Costner continued to attract sizable audiences to his films, whether critically lauded – as in the case of 1991’s "J.F.K" – or otherwise – as in 1991’s "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (the first film to contain a laughable Costner accent). When Costner’s critically panned romantic thriller, “The Bodyguard" (1992), even became a monstrous hit, the magnitude of his box office power became eminently clear. Next, Costner abandoned his patented heroic persona for his next project, the Clint Eastwood-directed "A Perfect World" (1993), in which he portrayed a charismatic, but mentally unbalanced escaped con who takes a young boy hostage and embarks upon a wild road trip. Though the film garnered mixed reviews and only moderate box-office returns, Costner’s roguish performance was widely cited as one of the best of his career and a chance for him to be the bad guy. The next year, Costner brought a new spin to a legendary lawman in Lawrence Kasdan's "Wyatt Earp" (1994), which he also co-produced. Emphasizing the simple family man side of the character, the film focused on Earp’s early loss of a young wife and the effect this tragedy would have on his later career. Though some reviewers found the film self-indulgently long at over three hours, few found fault with Costner’s performance. Meanwhile, family would again remain a strong theme in "The War" (1994), with the actor playing a returning Vietnam-era vet who seeks to build a better life for his wife and children. In a supporting role, Costner played a tortured soul trying to teach his young son the value of lessons he had learned during the war. Even with the Costner drawing power, however, neither 1994 release attracted much box office activity. He finished off the year as co-producer of the period adventure "Rapa Nui," a box office flop directed by Kevin Reynolds. He then took the title role in the biopic Wyatt Earp (1994), directed by Kasdan. It fizzled at the summer 1994 box office. The science fiction epics Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997), the latter of which Costner also directed, also were both major commercial disappointments. Costner then starred in the golf comedy Tin Cup (1996) for Ron Shelton, who had previously directed him in "Bull Durham." The actor developed the film Air Force One and was set to play the lead role of the President, but ultimately decided to concentrate on finishing The Postman instead. He personally offered the project to Harrison Ford. Costner chose a sci-fi action epic for his next vehicle as a star-producer, reuniting with Reynolds for "Waterworld" (1995), a post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" on water. In it, he played the Mariner, a half-man/half-amphibian protagonist. After a memorably troubled shoot in the waters off Hawaii, plagued by delays and mishaps – the most spectacular being the lavish set sinking to the bottom of the Pacific – the production wrapped in early 1995. The budget reportedly soared as high as $180 million, making it the then-costliest film ever made. Industry wags were already referring to it as "Kevin's Gate" and "Fishtar" before post-production was even completed. Further complications arose when director Reynolds ended up quitting the film over creative differences with Costner just three months before the scheduled July 28 release date – reportedly, neither Costner nor MCA deemed the director's cut worthy of test screening as their deadline loomed. Although "Waterworld" was hardly the disaster predicted by industry insiders – it earned a few respectable reviews and eventually broke even – the film’s disappointing returns and bad press were a smear on Costner’s once-pristine track record. Also putting a chink in Costner’s armor were rumors of affairs with various women, causing his long-time devoted wife and mother to the couple’s two daughters, Cindy Silva, to file for a divorce which was finalized in late 1994. Something about the specifics of their split – her being his college sweetheart, sticking with him through his struggles to reach fame, bearing his children – resonated negatively with Costner’s female fans in light of the rumored affairs, leaving them seemingly cold overnight. The divorce was so scandalous at the time, it made the cover of People magazine. The couple would later make amends as friends, but at the time, the split was acrimonious and – along w/ the bad publicity surrounding his less-than-successful vanity project, “Waterworld” – did much to tarnish his image as Hollywood’s favorite go-to leading man. Costner made a return to the slyly sexy rogues in Ron Shelton's golf-themed comedy, "Tin Cup" (1996), but the costly film just barely broke even. An even bigger disappointment was his second directorial effort, the three-hour would-be epic, "The Postman" (1997). Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the film was hurt by a misleading trailer and negative reviews; eventually becoming one of the highest-profile failures of 1997. The next several years saw Costner taking on a variety of roles, none of which served to give his career the boost that was needed after his damaging flops, including the mismatched romance, "Message in a Bottle" (1999) and yet another baseball film, "For the Love of the Game" (1999). Costner's career revived somewhat in 2000 with Thirteen Days, in which he portrayed a top adviser to John F. Kennedy. The western Open Range, which he directed and starred in, received critical acclaim in 2003, though it was only a minor success commercially. Costner received a reprieve from critics when his passion project detailing the Cuban Missile Crisis, "Thirteen Days" (2000), premiered to rave reviews – particularly for the actors uncannily playing the Kennedys – Steven Culp (RFK) and Bruce Greenwood (JFK). Unfortunately, Costner – playing the brothers’ political confidante, Kenny O’Donnell – did not fare as well, after opting to use a painfully hyperbolized “Bah-ston” accent. Regardless of that one misstep, after receiving some of the best reviews he had in years for shepherding through the Kevin Donaldson-helmed political thriller, Costner unfortunately followed up “13 Days” with the ill-advised action-comedy, “3000 Miles to Graceland” (2001) and forgettable thriller, “Dragonfly" (2002). Undaunted, Costner reached into his own pockets to co-finance his next movie, “Open Range” (2003), which he also directed. In it, Costner played the leader of a trio of free-range cattle drivers who run afoul of a hard-as-nails frontier sheriff. Though “Open Range” celebrated many of the traditions of classic western films, the movie polarized critics. Many praised the film’s respectful and deliberate pace, the old school iconography, and the climactic gunfight; others believed Costner's characteristic languid pace and adherence to tradition derailed the finer moments. Costner’s subsequent turn as yet another baseball player – this time of the paunchy, retired variety – in the dramedy, "The Upside of Anger" (2005), earned the actor some of his best acting notices in years. Costner next teamed with director Andrew Davis for the action drama, "The Guardian" – a shallow imitation of director Taylor Hackford’s far superior “An Officer and a Gentleman” (1982). While “The Guardian” awaited release, Costner was seen in “Rumor Has It,” Rob Reiner’s poor stab at remaking “The Graduate” (1967), and made yet another bid for a big-screen comeback, as the title character in the psychological thriller, “Mr. Brooks” A much better fit than the older man-romancing- Jennifer Aniston roles, Costner played against type as a possible serial killer who shares some sizzling screen time with William Hurt, a fellow Oscar winner and alum from “The Big Chill.” Although critics were less than enthused about the film, Costner received mostly glowing notices for his take on serial killer with a conscience. After that, Costner starred in The Guardian and in Mr. Brooks, in which he portrayed a serial killer. Costner was honored on September 6, 2006 when his hand and foot prints were set in concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre alongside those of other celebrated actors and entertainers. While in college Costner was a member of Delta Chi fraternity. He started dating fellow student Cindy Silva in March 1975, and their subsequent marriage produced three children: Annie (born in 1984), Lily (born in 1986), and Joe (born in 1988). Kevin and Cindy divorced in 1994 after 16 years of marriage. He also has a son, Liam (born in 1996), with Bridget Rooney, with whom he had a brief relationship following his divorce. On September 25, 2004, after 10 years of being single, Costner married his girlfriend of four years, the German model and handbag designer Christine Baumgartner, at his ranch in Aspen, Colorado. Guests, including Oprah Winfrey, Oliver Stone, and Bruce Willis, were treated to activities including horseback riding and baseball during the weekend festivities. Costner took his new bride for a canoe ride on a lake following the ceremony. The couple honeymooned in Scotland. Their first child, Cayden Wyatt Costner, was born on May 6, 2007 at 10:30 p.m. at a Los Angeles hospital. He weighed 7 lbs, 14 oz. Costner was registered as a Republican until the 1996 election, when he changed his registration to Independent. He supported Democratic candidates in the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 Presidential elections; however, he still prefers to be known as a "conservative".[citation needed] Several of Costner's films have included a baseball theme. They include Chasing Dreams, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger, in which his character is a former pro baseball player. The actor plays regularly in celebrity golf tournaments, including the PGA Tour's annual pro-am at Pebble Beach, California and the BMW Pro-Am held each April in Greenville County, South Carolina. Costner owns 93.5% of the "Midnight Star" casino in Deadwood, South Dakota. The casino, its sports bar "Diamond Lil's" and its restaurant "Jake's" are named after characters and locations from the movie Silverado and the facility contains posters, costumes, and other memorabilia from Costner's films. In July 2004, Costner fired Francis and Carla Caneva, who managed the Midnight Star. A judge subsequently order Costner to pay $6.1 million to buy out the Caneva's as his business partners. In October 2006, Costner asked the South Dakota Supreme Court to re-examine the ruling, as an accountant hired by the actor had determined the market value of the casino to be $3.1 million. Costner is a fan of the London football team Arsenal F.C. While filming Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he was given the opportunity to attend a game and has followed the team ever since. The actor was named ceremonial Grand Marshall of the Auto550 club for the February 25, 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup auto race event at the California Speedway. He has a home in Austin, Texas and sometimes appears at University of Texas baseball practices and games. Costner is a close friend to Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido, from Garrido's days coaching at Cal State Fullerton, the actor's alma mater. He cast Garrido to play the role of "Yankee Manager" in his film For Love of the Game. He tries to attend every College World Series game that Cal State Fullerton plays in Omaha. He is also the singer of "Kevin Costner and Modern West," a rock/country band which he founded with the encouragement of his wife Christine. He began a worldwide tour with the band in October 2007, which included shows in Istanbul and Rome. On 24 April 2006, it was revealed that Costner was the mystery celebrity involved in a controversial case at a hotel at the St Andrews golf course, Scotland, owned by his friend Herbert Kohler, Jr. While on his honeymoon in October 2004, a hotel employee complained that Costner had performed a lewd act while she was attempting to massage him. She informed the hotel management but was not dismissed until the following August. Costner's former girlfriend Birgit Cunningham was one of his friends who denied the allegations. However, when the case reached a Scottish employment tribunal, the tribunal chairman agreed to the release of the actor's name as it formed a basis for both parties' cases. The woman, who remains unnamed, settled out of court with the hotel under a tight confidentiality agreement. |
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