Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American film actor and director who has often produced his own films.

Biography

Kevin Costner was born in Lynwood, California, the youngest of the three sons of William Costner (an electrician of German and 1/4 Native American descent) and Sharon Tedrick (of Irish descent). He spent his teenage years and pre-actor adulthood in Orange County, California, graduating from Villa Park High School in Villa Park, California in 1973, and earning a B.A. in business from California State University, Fullerton in 1978, where he was a member of the Delta Chi Fraternity. He became interested in acting while still in college, and began taking acting lessons five nights a week. Costner later worked briefly with a California marketing firm, after a chance encounter with actor Richard Burton, who struck up a conversation with him. Burton had advised the young man that if he wanted to pursue acting, he should give everything up completely and go after it with both hands. Costner married a Portuguese-American by the name of Cindy Silva. With his wife behind him, Costner worked on fishing boats and as a truck driver, and gave tours of stars' Hollywood homes to support the two while he made the audition rounds. Kevin and Cindy divorced in 1994 after 16 years of marriage. Costner has four children: Annie (born in 1984), Lilly (born in 1986) and Joe (born in 1988), all with Cindy, and an illegitimate son, Liam (born in 1996), with Bridget Rooney, a woman he had a brief relationship with following his divorce from Cindy. Only through blood tests was it revealed that Costner was Liam's father. Lily is currently attending college. All three of his children with Cindy were educated in part at the Chandler School in Pasadena, California. On September 25, 2004, after ten years of being single, Costner married his girlfriend of four years, Christine Baumgartner, in a lavish ceremony attended by 500 guests. Among the guests were Oprah Winfrey, Don Johnson, Tim Allen, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Willis, and Michael Douglas.

Kevin Costner's most popular success was the epic Dances with Wolves. He directed and starred in the film and served as one of two producers. The film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won seven, including two for him personally (Best Picture and Best Director). Almost all of his subsequent film efforts have been criticized for being too long and overly serious, and for squandering financial resources. The science-fiction epics Waterworld and The Postman were both initially considered major disappointments at the box office. However, Waterworld grossed $264 million worldwide from a $175 million budget (according to IMDB), and his film Open Range, which he directed and starred in, has been an immense critical success as a revisionist western.

Trivia

• Costner was cast in the hit The Big Chill (1983). He filmed several scenes which were planned as flashbacks, but they never made it to the final cut. He was the friend who committed suicide, the event around which the plot of the movie revolves. 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 later promised the actor a role in a future project, which became Silverado and included a breakout role for Costner.
• Costner's height is 6'1".
• Turned down the role of the U.S. President in Air Force One (1997). The role went to Harrison Ford.
• Appeared in a commercial for the Apple Lisa in 1983.
• Dated ABC's Good Morning America host Joan Lunden
• Costner was registered as a Republican until the 1996 election, when he changed his registration to Independent. He supported Democrat candidates in the 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections.

Filmography

• Stacy's Knights (1982)
• Chasing Dreams (1982)
• Night Shift (1982)
• Frances (1982)
• Table for Five (1983)
• The Big Chill (1983) (scenes deleted)
• Testament (1983)
• The Gunrunner (1984)
• Fandango (1985)
• Silverado (1985)
• American Flyers (1985)
• Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. (1986)
• Shadows Run Black (1986)
• The Untouchables (1987)
• No Way Out (1987)
• Bull Durham (1988)
• Field of Dreams (1989)
• Revenge (1990) (also executive producer)
• Dances with Wolves (1990) (also director and producer)
• Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) (documentary)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) (also producer)
• JFK (1991)
• Oliver Stone (1992) (documentary)
• Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy (1992) (documentary)
• The Bodyguard (1992) (also producer)
• Amazing Stories: Book One'' (1992). segment:The Mission He plays the captain of the plane
• A Perfect World (1993)
• A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
• Wyatt Earp (1994) (also producer)
• The War (1994)
• Waterworld (1995) (also director and producer)
• Tin Cup (1996)
• Sean Connery, an Intimate Portrait (1997) (documentary)
• The Postman (1997) (also director and producer)
• Message in a Bottle (1999) (also producer)
• For Love of the Game (1999)
• Play It to the Bone (1999) (Cameo)
• Thirteen Days (2000) (also producer)
• 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
• Dragonfly (2002)
• Open Range (2003) (also director and producer)
• The Upside of Anger (2005)
• Rumor Has It (2005)
• The Guardian (2006) (currently filming)
• The Tortilla Curtain (2006) (currently in pre-production) (also producer)
   

This Kevin Costner Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2006 Chuck Ayoub