Frederic Forrest

Frederic Forrest, the Oscar-nominated character actor, was born two days before Christmas Day in 1936 in Waxahachie, Texas, the same home town as director Robert Benton. Forrest had long wanted to be an actor, but he was so nervous that he ran out of auditions for school plays. Later, at Texas Christian University, he took a minor in theater arts while majoring in radio and television studies. His parents opposed his aspirations as a thespian as it was a precarious existence, but he moved on to New York and studied with renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner. He eventually became an observer at the Actors Studio, where he was tutored by Lee Strasberg. During this time, he supported himself as a page at the NBC Studios in Rockefeller Plaza. His theatrical debut was in the Off-Broadway production of "Viet-Rock", an anti-war play featuring music. He became part of avant-garde director Tom O'Horgan's stock company at La Mama, appearing in the infamous "Futz", among other productions. After starring in the off-Broadway play "Silhouettes", Forrest moved with the production to Los Angeles, intent on breaking into movies. While the production ran for three months and was visited by agents bird-dogging new talent, Forrest got no offers and had to support himself as a pizza-baker after the show closed.

Eventually, he began auditing classes at Actors Studio West, and director Stuart Millar saw him in a student showcase production of Clifford Odets' "Watiting for Lefty" and cast him in When the Legends Die (1972).

He copped a 1973 Golden Globe nomination as "Most Promising Newcomer - Male" for the role.

Forrest landed a small but very important part in "Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974). He and Cindy Williams are the two people having that titular conversation (recorded by Gene Hackman: so Forrest's voice is heard throughout the film).

In 1976, in the quirky Western The Missouri Breaks (1976), he plays part of a group of men being hunted by Marlon Brando. That same year, Apocalypse Now (1979), started filming (to be released in 1979), where he plays part of a group of men who are hunting Brando.

And Coppola wasn't done with him! Playing "Chef" in Apocalypse Now (1979) garnered Forrest the best notices of his career, and he parlayed that into Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actor for The Rose (1979), his second hit that year. He was named Best Supporting Actor by the National Society of Film Critics for both films. Then he was cast as the star in Coppola's "One From The Heart".

Played mystery novelist Dashiell Hammett twice; first as the lead in Hammett (1982), then as a supporting role in Citizen Cohn (1992).

In 1986-87, he spent a lot of time playing law enforcement agents on television: As real life Detective Bob Keppell in the Ted Bundy two-part television movie, The Deliberate Stranger (1986), and as the fictional Captain Richard Jenko on 21 Jump Street (1987).

Appeared for the first time at the popular Hollywood Show (Autograph Convention in Los Angeles) in 2018.