Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges (born December 4, 1949, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is an American actor known for his good looks, laid-back personality, and versatility.

Bridges, son of actor Lloyd Bridges, made his acting debut at age eight in Sea Hunt (1958), a television series in which his father starred. After graduating from University High School in Los Angeles, he served in the Coast Guard reserves and later moved to New York City to study acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio. Over the next few years he took several small acting roles in films before landing his big break, a role in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He earned a second Oscar nomination for his portrayal of an itinerant thief in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). Highlighting his versatility, Bridges later played a paleontologist in King Kong (1976); a wealthy real-estate agent in Stay Hungry (1976), which also starred Sally Field and Arnold Schwarzenegger; and a man obsessed with discovering his brother’s assassin in Winter Kills (1979).

The 1980s and ’90s held a steady stream of film roles for Bridges. He captured the imagination of young audiences with his role as a genius video-game programmer in the Disney science fiction movie TRON (1982). For his leading role as an alien who takes on the appearance of a woman’s dead husband in Starman (1984), he earned a third Oscar nomination. Bridges also starred as a former athlete searching for a female fugitive in Against All Odds (1984). In 1989 he appeared with his brother, Beau Bridges, and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), a drama about two musicians who expand their failing lounge act to include a sexy female singer.

Britannica Quiz

Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia

The 1990s brought roles in Texasville (1990), a sequel to The Last Picture Show; The Fisher King (1991), about a bitter radio show host who embarks on a mystical journey to help a homeless man (played by Robin Williams); the touching story of an ex-con dad trying to relate to his son, American Heart (1992); the thriller The Vanishing (1993); and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996). Perhaps his best-known film from the 1990s, however, was the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998), in which Bridges played the Dude, a lazy pot-smoking unemployed loafer who gets drawn into a crime ring after having been mistaken for someone else. The film—which also featured John Goodman and Steve Buscemi—became a cult classic, and Bridges earned excellent reviews for his convincing performance.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Bridges received his fourth Oscar nomination, for his role in The Contender (2000) as an American president whose vice presidential nominee (played by Joan Allen) becomes embroiled in a sex scandal. His subsequent films include Seabiscuit (2003), Stick It (2006), and Iron Man (2008), which was based on the Marvel Comics comic strip. In 2009 Bridges starred with George Clooney in The Men Who Stare at Goats, a comedy that centres on a secret U.S. Army unit trained to use psychic powers. Later that year he appeared as a grizzled country musician in Crazy Heart, for which he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award for best actor. Bridges followed that success with the sequel TRON: Legacy (2010), in which he reprised his original role. His performance as the ornery U.S. marshal Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers’ western True Grit (2010) earned him his sixth Oscar nomination.

Bridges later starred in the action comedy R.I.P.D. (2013) as a veteran of a supernatural police force. He played the title character, a man who serves as the sole repository of history prior to the establishment of an ostensibly utopian society, in The Giver (2014). Bridges had for years attempted to secure financing for the film, based on the novel for young readers by Lois Lowry, and ultimately served as a producer. He later was cast as a Texas sheriff pursuing bank robbers in Hell or High Water (2016), and his performance netted the actor another Oscar nomination. He then appeared in Only the Brave (2017), a drama that chronicles the real-life efforts of a group of elite firefighters (the Granite Mountain Hotshots) to contain the Arizona wildfires during the summer of 2013. Bridges also had roles in the spy movie Kingsman: The Golden Circle and the dramedy The Only Living Boy in New York (both 2017). He then played an Irish priest staying at a hotel that has a storied past in Bad Times at the El Royale (2018). In 2019 Bridges received the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement).

While filming the TV series The Old Man in 2020, Bridges was diagnosed with lymphoma. Production was halted as he sought treatment. During this time he also contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized for several weeks. Eventually he returned to acting, and The Old Man debuted in 2022. In it Bridges played a retired CIA agent on the run from a former colleague (played by John Lithgow).

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

In addition to his acting career, Bridges wrote and performed songs, often accompanying himself on guitar. He recorded the roots-oriented albums Be Here Soon (2000) and Jeff Bridges (2011), the latter of which was produced by T Bone Burnett. Bridges collaborated with Zen Buddhist master Bernie Glassman on The Dude and the Zen Master (2012), a volume of observations and meditations that drew on the epically sanguine “Dude” persona he evinced in The Big Lebowski.