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KLINE, Kevin

by admin — last modified 2005-05-07 03:13 PM

American actor, also: Stage director (1947-

* 24-10-1947, St. Louis, MO -

(music, drama, mime); Juilliard (drama)

A founding member of John Houseman's prestigious The Acting Company of Juilliard School, Kevin Kline has gone on to establish himself as one of the most versatile performers of his generation. A dynamic leading man with rakish good looks (he was dubbed "The 1980s Errol Flynn" by Vanity Fair), Kline won Tony awards for two of his early, flamboyant stage performances: as an egomaniacal producer, in the musical On the Twentieth Century; and as the swashbuckling pirate king in The Pirates of Penzance. He made an impressive screen debut as a charismatic schizophrenic opposite Meryl Streep in SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982).

Kline has continued to make regular stage appearances, notably in George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man (1985) and the New York Shakespeare Festival's Hamlet (1986 and 1990, the second time also directing). Meanwhile, he has etched some memorable movie characters, frequently in the films of Lawrence Kasdan. He played the definitive post-radical, young suburban professional in Kasdan's THE BIG CHILL (1983) and a revisionist Western hero in his SILVERADO (1985); a volatile, gloriously stupid hit man in A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988); a second-rate "serious" actor starring on daytime TV in SOAPDISH (1991); a middle-aged yuppie with a conscience in GRAND CANYON (1991, again directed by Kasdan); and, in a highly effective cameo role, Douglas Fairbanks, in Richard Attenborough's 1992 biopic, CHAPLIN. In the title role of Ivan Reitman's DAVE (1993), Kline gave one of his most endearing performances, playing dual roles as the President of the United States, and as the nearly identical working-class everyman who is hired to pose as the president during public appearances, then takes his place after the real chief executive falls into a coma. Kline is married to actress Phoebe Cates.

Filmography:

1982 SOPHIE'S CHOICE