Kevin Spacey - Biography

Name: Kevin Spacey

Born: 26 July 1959 (Age: 50)

Where: South Orange, New Jersey, USA

Height: 5' 11"

Awards: Won 2 Oscars and 1 BAFTA, 4 Golden Globe nominations

There are many actors who claim their art is more important to them than fame or fortune. It's a mantra born out of guilt and a recognition of art-unfriendly self-obsession. But very few back it up with action, no matter how rich and famous they become. Yet, once he'd achieved a modicum of professional security, Kevin Spacey actually demanded that his name be taken off the credits of a sure-fire blockbuster. And NOT because he thought the movie so poor it would damage his career. No, before the release of Seven, Spacey made that request because he believed a credit would have the audience waiting for his arrival onscreen, it would detract from the shock of the story. It was hugely unusual behaviour, particularly as Spacey had earlier been a paragon of terrifying ambition. Then again - now a double Oscar winner - Kevin Spacey is a very unusual talent.

He was born Kevin Fowler on the 26th of July, 1959, in South Orange, New Jersey, not far from Newark airport. He was the youngest of three children. His father, Thomas, was a technical procedure writer, his mother, Kathleen, a personal secretary. Thomas's work being irregular, the family moved all over the States and Kevin, a bright child forced to prove himself over and over again, grew close to uncontrollable. Eventually, having settled in Southern California, his behaviour became too much. After burning down his sister's tree-house, he was packed off to Northridge Military Academy. It changed nothing in this smart but unruly child. Kevin won a Leadership Award, but was then expelled when, at a boxing match, he flung a tire at a schoolmate's head.

In an odd twist on the norm, being thrown out of the military proved to be the making of him. Enrolling at Chatsworth High School in the San Fernando Valley, he was encouraged by a Guidance Counsellor to channel his hitherto misspent energies into acting - Chatsworth being something of a breeding ground for Hollywood stars. Kevin already had a deep knowledge of cinematic history from constantly sneaking downstairs in the night to watch old movies on TV (and he remembers ALL of them). Thus he'd received his education at the feet of masters like Bogart, Henry Fonda and Spencer Tracy. It's often been said he created the name Spacey by squeezing Spencer into Tracy - in fact, it's from his mother's side of the family. This education continued throughout his school years as, along with his mates, he'd play truant to attend revival screenings at the NuArt cinema. A natural mimic, Spacey quickly perfected impressions of the likes of James Stewart and Johnny Carson.

Indeed, as a precocious teen he'd attend comedy clubs to watch the likes of Robin Williams and Jay Leno, then perform himself on amateur nights (he also played bowling alleys).

By his senior year at High School, Kevin was a leading man. He starred in Unhealthy To Be Unpleasant and in The Sound Of Music. Here he was Captain Von Trapp with Mare Winningham as his Maria. The pair would graduate as co-valedictorians in 1977, and would remain friends. When Spacey was Oscar-nominated for The Usual Suspects, she sent him a telegram saying "Captain Von Trapp - congratulations on your nomination - Maria". Amazingly, she'd been nominated herself that same year, for Georgia.

After graduation, Kevin briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College (he also applied to be on The Gong Show, but was rejected). He left on the advice of another schoolmate at Chatsworth, Val Kilmer, who had moved on two years before to the Juilliard college, and highly recommended the drama programme. Spacey signed up and spent two "intense and competitive" years there - he loved it and still works with some of the teachers. But Spacey wanted to work and left to join the New York Shakespeare Festival, making his professional debut, naturally, as a spear-carrier in Henry VI, in 1981.

Spacey was already ready to move on, a fact recognised by the Festival's director, Joseph Papp, who sacked him, deliberately forcing him out into the "real world" of theatre. Now began a tough apprenticeship. He debuted on Broadway in 1982, as Liv Ullmann's son in Ibsen's Ghosts, doing Uncle Vanya that same year. Then came a stint in The Mousetrap, then As You Like It, Moliere's The Misanthrope and, come 1984, David Rabe's Hurlyburly where, energetic and fabulously adaptable, Spacey rotated through each of the male parts (he'd later appear in the screen version too). Next came The Seagull and a period, in 1986, performing Sleuth in a New Jersey dinner theatre. Spacey recalls these times as peculiarly hard. He spent his free time, he says, avoiding his landlady and gathering cans in a shopping trolley. Convinced of his own excellence and horribly frustrated by his lack of progress, he says he could not sleep for obsessing over his career.

Spacey must have been a real pain, for himself and others. In his hilarious book With Nails, Richard E. Grant recalled the shooting of Henry And June (released in 1990 and concerning Henry Miller's sexual escapades in Paris), describing Spacey as being "on a rant because he didn't get any close-ups", adding, on Spacey's desperation to rise to prominence, "His will-it-be-me? kvetch receives scant support from me".

Various events helped to calm Kevin. For one, he began to visit the public library, devouring the biographies of successful actors and coming to realise that others had had to wait too. Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman, for instance, were both in their thirties when they made Easy Rider and The Graduate, respectively. Also, his career enjoyed a gradual upward shift.

First, in 1986, came a stage production of Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey Into Night, where he starred alongside one of his heroes, Jack Lemmon. The show was heavily criticized on Broadway, but brought standing ovations when it switched to London's Theatre Royal at Haymarket (it was directed, coincidentally, by Jonathan Miller who, as Spacey would later, has served as artistic director of the Old Vic). This would raise in Spacey a long-term affection for London, and lead to the role of the sinister villain Mel Profitt in the well-received mob series Wiseguy.

. But still it wasn't moving fast enough. Onstage he performed in As It Is In Heaven, Right Behind The Flag and, in 1988 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Dennis McIntyre's National Anthems, stepping in to replace Al Pacino who had over-run on Sea Of Love. There were a couple of TV movies, and small parts in Working Girl and the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor vehicle See No Evil, Hear No Evil. He'd actually debuted onscreen in 1986, as a "subway thief" in Heartburn, coincidentally starring Nicholson and directed by The Graduate's Mike Nichols. In 1989, this fiercely intelligent and well-educated actor's fear of failure must have peaked when he appeared in the short-lived TV series Unsub, starring David Soul as the head of a Behavioural Science Unit. This would certainly explain his tormented outbursts on the set of Henry And June.

Yet help was at hand, first in the shape of Jack Lemmon. While filming 1989's Dad, a cross-generational weepie starring Lemmon, Ted Danson and Ethan Hawke, Spacey enjoyed a revelation he believes changed his self-obsessive attitudes for good. He recalls passing the trailer of Eddie Murphy, then filming Harlem Nights on a neighbouring set. It was huge, surrounded by staff and a fleet of Rolls Royce golf-carts. "The man", Spacey told Arena magazine "had his own little city". Then, next to Murphy City, he noticed another, far smaller trailer, belonging to Jack Lemmon. "This is one of the greatest actors alive, and he's sitting in there by himself, with the door wide open, doing the New York Times crossword. And I thought to myself in that instant, Which life do you want, man? Which way do you want to go?" And, when Lemmon looked up and sweetly smiled, Spacey's mind was made up. He would aim to be a great actor, not simply a big star.

Some leads did now come his way. He played naughty evangelist Jim Bakker in Fall From Grace, Bernadette Peters being his Tammi. Then he made an excellent Clarence Darrow in Darrow, about the most famous lawyer in US history (it was he who, in the late 1800s, defended a teacher's right to teach evolution). Spacey later claimed this was his favourite role, as Darrow was the character closest to himself - though this may well have been more of that notorious Spacey humour.

But, despite these leads, he now began to benefit from the lesson taught him by Lemmon and his own destructive frustration. He decided that he didn't actually NEED to be the LEAD. What he needed was to be a central character, someone all the other characters would bounce off. And, near-instantly, up popped the perfect part. In David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, Kevin played the boss of a real estate agency, goading his workers (including, once again, Jack Lemmon) on to ever-greater extremes. It wasn't the biggest role, but it was central and thoroughly eye-catching, Spacey shining as a smart-mouthed, manipulative swine.

And it was this intelligence, accompanied by massive arrogance, that Spacey brought to his next series of roles, roles which finally made him a household name. In Hostile Hostages, he and screen wife Judy Davis were kidnapped by Denis Leary, only to send him mad with their eternal, waspish bickering. Then came the fabulous Swimming With Sharks where, as studio executive Buddy Ackerman, he subjected an underling to such vicious humiliation he eventually went berserk. Then, after Outbreak, came Seven, where, as the super-murderer John Doe, a freaked-out cross between Ed Gein and John The Baptist, Spacey's burning intellect allowed him to convince us that he was indeed capable of such dreadful crimes. The way he smirked at Brad Pitt, knowing full well what was in the box, was itself a filmic masterclass.

Any actor would've considered the year they played John Doe to be a success. But Spacey had plenty more to come in 1995. In The Usual Suspects, he was again not the lead, but again absolutely central. As Roger "Verbal" Kint, it was he who told the police all about the formation of Gabriel Byrne's gang, the blackmail, the murder, the final dockside confrontation and, of course, the legendary master of disaster Keyser Soze. Or at least, he told them HIS version. Once more, Spacey was unbelievably good - sneaky, suspicious, arrogant, vulnerable and cruel - utterly perfect. And quite rightly he was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, for which he was more than prepared. "As a kid," he told Premiere magazine "we used to come out of the curtains in the kitchen to accept the Cheerios box, or whatever it was".

Now Spacey was big news and the press came after him, all the more keenly because he clearly didn't wish to reveal details of his private life. "It's not that I want to create some bullshit mystique by maintaining a silence about my personal life," he told the Evening Standard, "It's just that the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character onscreen". Rumours began that he was gay, indeed Esquire magazine at one point appeared to "out" him. Spacey, for a long time, kept silent, explaining that his sexuality was no one's business, and what difference did it make anyway? Eventually he said that he was glad women thought he was gay. "For them it's a challenge," he said. "They want to be the one to turn me around. I let them".

Workwise, he went on his merry way. In 1996, he made his directorial debut with Albino Alligator. Here a gang including Matt Dillon and Gary Sinise hole up in a New Orleans bar (Faye Dunaway is the hard-bitten bar-maid) after bungling badly. Spacey enjoyed it immensely, particularly the opportunity to work with first-time writer Christian Forte. He remembers well his time in theatre and the pain of not being given a chance. In fact, at the beginning of 2002, he announced that he was taking a break from acting in order to encourage new talent, to "send the elevator back down".

After Albino Alligator came a rush of big-budget movies. He was the DA, busting vengeful father Samuel L. Jackson in A Time To Kill. Then he was the celebrity-hungry cop Sgt Jack Vincennes, prowling 1950s Los Angeles alongside Russell Crowe in the critically lauded LA Confidential. After this he dominated Clint Eastwood's Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, once more set in the South. Here he was wealthy art dealer and bon vivant Jim Williams, a semi-closeted homosexual and, possibly, the brutal murderer of Jude Law. He also sang That Old Black Magic on the film's soundtrack. Then he teamed up with Samuel Jackson again, this time playing a hostage negociator brought in to talk down Jackson, a negociator himself but framed and forced to take hostages of his own.

And it kept improving. He made a superb Hopper, the evil dictator in A Bug's Life, and then moved on to his greatest success yet. In American Beauty, he made an iconic figure of Lester Burnham, a middle-aged man who, finding himself unhappy in his job and utterly distanced from his family, jacks it all in, blackmails his boss, buys himself a flash motor and tries to recapture the Lester he used to be. His joyful roar of "I RULE!" was a genuinely classic screen moment. Four days before the film opened, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. The Oscar was a mere formality.

The hits kept coming. In Pay It Forward he was a disillusioned teacher drawn towards a more hopeful life (and an affair with Helen Hunt) by Haley Joel Osment's wide-eyed altruism. Then there was the surprise hit K-PAX where he played a mental patient who claims to be from another planet. Psychiatrist Jeff Bridges must decide whether he's a wacko or really is green on the inside. Then came Lasse Hallstrom's adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's bestseller The Shipping News, with Spacey taking his young son back to his ancestral home in Newfoundland and receiving wisdom, comfort and pain from Judi Dench, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett respectively. On set, he drank copious amounts of the local moonshine with Dench while teaching her to play pool and, once both Moore and Blanchett had fallen pregnant, claimed it was because they'd both taken a ride on his bike.

After this was The United States Of Leland, where a 15-year-old autistic boy who kills "out of sadness" is sent to a juvenile facility where they try to understand his problem. And then came The Life Of David Gale, directed by Alan Parker, where Spacey played an activist against capital punishment who winds up on Death Row after being charged with rape and murder. Kate Winslet co-starred as a journalist who, while writing his life-story, begins to wonder whether he's actually guilty. And there's only three days till they hit the switch!

While his film career was entering the stratosphere, Spacey kept one foot on the stage. He'd won a Tony in 1991 for his performances as Uncle Louie in Neil Simon's Lost In Yonkers and, in 1998, returned to Eugene O'Neill when he performed The Iceman Cometh at London's Almeida (for a paltry '225 a week). The production would move on to the Old Vic, and then, the next year, to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York. He also sang in public - according to him the most nerve-wracking experience of his life - when he performed Mind Games at a John Lennon tribute that became a benefit for the victims of the September 11th attacks.

It was after The Life Of David Gale that he took time off to help the less fortunate in the industry and outside. He'd already done his bit, having donated $100,000 to the Screen Actors' Guild strike fund, and paid $150,000 for the Oscar George Stoll won for Anchors Aweigh in 1945, which he duly returned to its original owner. In December 2001, he saved a young boy from drowning in the pool of the Beverly Hills Hilton and the next year accompanied former president Bill Clinton and comedian Chris Rock on goodwill tours of Europe and Africa. Come to think of it, he's turned into quite a sickeningly good bloke.

Perhaps more importantly, career-wise, he'd kept in contact with the Old Vic since his stint in The Iceman Cometh, becoming a trustee. In early 2003 he would be taken on as the theatre's artistic director (a decision actually made in secret some four years earlier), amid much publicity. Many were expecting radical rethinks of the classics, but Spacey's opening season in the autumn of 2004 was yet more deliberately thought-provoking. He began by directing the brutal Cloaca, written by the unknown Dutch writer Maria Goos, then there was a new version of the pantomime Aladdin, starring Ian McKellen. Next he would take to the stage himself, reprising the role he'd played in National Anthems back in 1988, and then would come the classic The Philadelphia Story, with Spacey taking the Cary Grant role, and another great Spacey performance as Richard II.

Of course, being in London, Spacey was prime tabloid fodder. Much was made of his complaints about the noise of mobile phones and rustling sweet-wrappers during Old Vic performances. Even more was made of an incident where he claimed he was mugged in a south London park at 4.30 in the morning.

Eventually, he was forced to admit that he'd been duped into handing his phone over to a young kid, who immediately took off. In attempting a pursuit, Spacey had tripped over his own dog and hit his head on the road - highly embarrassing for a man of such vaunted intelligence. Back in the States, Spacey's elder brother Randall would be causing yet more trouble, publicly accusing their father of being a pervert, sadist and member of the Nazi party. He'd worn a Hitler moustache, apparently, and molested and beaten Randall who, naturally, had protected young Kevin from any such treatment. Kevin, he claimed, had ignored all of this, repressing his feelings until he had "nothing inside". A book was mooted, to be titled I'm Spacey's Brother Whether He Likes It Or Not. Spacey himself maintained a dignified silence. Really, what could he say to THAT?

. Back onscreen, 2004 also saw Spacey finally bring a long-cherished project to fruition. In Beyond The Sea, he would direct himself, playing the great pop singer and ambitious entertainer Bobby Darin, doomed to die at a painfully young 37. With $27 million to play with, Spacey certainly played, constructing some huge production numbers, flitting back and forth through time and even having the older Darin converse with the younger. It was great fun and so accomplished that Spacey managed to avoid accusations of it being a vanity project.

Perhaps more importantly, career-wise, he'd kept in contact with the Old Vic since his stint in The Iceman Cometh, becoming a trustee. In early 2003 he would be taken on as the theatre's artistic director (a decision actually made in secret some four years earlier), amid much publicity. Many were expecting radical rethinks of the classics, but Spacey's opening season in the autumn of 2004 was yet more deliberately thought-provoking. He began by directing the brutal Cloaca, written by the unknown Dutch writer Maria Goos, then there was a new version of the pantomime Aladdin, starring Ian McKellen. Next he would take to the stage himself, reprising the role he'd played in National Anthems back in 1988, and then would come the classic The Philadelphia Story, with Spacey taking the Cary Grant role, and another great Spacey performance as Richard II.

Of course, being in London, Spacey was prime tabloid fodder. Much was made of his complaints about the noise of mobile phones and rustling sweet-wrappers during Old Vic performances. Even more was made of an incident where he claimed he was mugged in a south London park at 4.30 in the morning. Eventually, he was forced to admit that he'd been duped into handing his phone over to a young kid, who immediately took off. In attempting a pursuit, Spacey had tripped over his own dog and hit his head on the road - highly embarrassing for a man of such vaunted intelligence. Back in the States, Spacey's elder brother Randall would be causing yet more trouble, publicly accusing their father of being a pervert, sadist and member of the Nazi party.

He'd worn a Hitler moustache, apparently, and molested and beaten Randall who, naturally, had protected young Kevin from any such treatment. Kevin, he claimed, had ignored all of this, repressing his feelings until he had "nothing inside". A book was mooted, to be titled I'm Spacey's Brother Whether He Likes It Or Not. Spacey himself maintained a dignified silence. Really, what could he say to THAT?

. Back onscreen, 2004 also saw Spacey finally bring a long-cherished project to fruition. In Beyond The Sea, he would direct himself, playing the great pop singer and ambitious entertainer Bobby Darin, doomed to die at a painfully young 37. With $27 million to play with, Spacey certainly played, constructing some huge production numbers, flitting back and forth through time and even having the older Darin converse with the younger. It was great fun and so accomplished that Spacey managed to avoid accusations of it being a vanity project.

He moved on to Edison, the big screen debut of the pop star Justin Timberlake. This would see Timberlake as a rookie journalist who discovers the existence of an elite and deeply corrupt unit within the police force, which finances its operations by stealing "dirty" money. Though working on a two-bit rag, Timberlake decides to dig deeper and (eventually) aided by his embittered editor Morgan Freeman, he tries to engage the help of Spacey, the city's top detective. Spacey in turn, recognising the corruption has spread even to his own office, must investigate without informing the DA. With shades of Copland, Serpico and even Spacey's own LA Confidential, it was another great role. However, the film would be deemed a flop and sent straight to video.

Back at the Old Vic, Spacey was now under fire from a disapproving press. He'd taken a risk by bringing in Robert Altman to direct an adaptation of Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues featuring Matthew Modine, but Altman, by his own later admission, did not really understand the play. It showed, with the play's run being cut short and the theatre closed during the usually lucrative summer season. The knives were out, but Spacey reacted with customary sang froid, refused to admit defeat, pointing out that his first 18 months had brought 425,000 into the Old Vic, twice the audience enjoyed by the previous two seasons. He also planned to nail his critics with a trump card, re-teaming with his Iceman director Howard Davies and returning to Eugene O'Neill for A Moon For The Misbegotten, a sequel to A Long Day's Journey Into Night in which he would star from September to December, 2006. This would be followed by a sure-fire Shakespeare double-header comprising Twelfth Night and The Taming Of The Shrew. Who could possibly complain about that?

Onscreen, after the failure of Edison, Spacey would also make a powerful comeback by taking the role of Lex Luthor in Bryan Singer's long-anticipated Superman Returns. Here Superman retruns to Earth after a long absence, only to find his beloved Lois Lane a mother. Luthor, too, has moved on, yet still naturally harbours dreams of world domination, Spacey being at his megalomaniacal best - sharp, villainous and preening, but also wise, poignant and thoroughly scary.

Discussing the root of acting and directing, Kevin Spacey once asked "What are you willing to live with as a human being? There's things I'm just not willing to live with - and I won't. And if it means that I stop and find something else in life that interests me or challenges me, so be it". Later he would claim that many of his actorly ambitions were fulfilled by his second Oscar and so he had decided to dedicate his life to the promotion of other people's talents. The Old Vic post was part of this, as was his formation of Trigger Street Productions which in the first half of 2006 alone released three movies - Mr Gibbs, Mini's First Time and The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang - by unknown directors. Spacey was keeping true to his word.

Another quote further helps to explain this complex and brilliant man. Having suffered all those years of tortured self-obsession, he's now able to say "I used to see my mug in dailies and groan. Now I see it and think 'Hey, you look like an aging Chinese character actress - and they STILL HIRE YOU'." Truly, the man is a star.

Domonic Wills