Kevin Kline

Kevin Delaney Kline (born October 24, 1947) is an American film and stage actor and singer. He has won an Academy Award and three Tony Awards and is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee.[1]
Kline began his career on stage in 1972 with The Acting Company. He has gone on to win three Tony Awards for his work on Broadway, winning Best Featured Actor in a Musical for the 1978 original production of On the Twentieth Century, Best Actor in a Musical for the 1981 revival of The Pirates of Penzance, and Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the 2017 revival of Present Laughter.[2]
He made his film debut in Sophie's Choice (1982). For his role in the 1988 comedy hit A Fish Called Wanda, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2003, he starred as Falstaff in the Broadway production of Henry IV, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play.
He has been nominated for 2 Emmy Awards, two BAFTA Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. His other films include The Big Chill (1983), Silverado(1985), Cry Freedom (1987), Grand Canyon (1991), Dave (1993), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Ice Storm (1997), In & Out (1997), Wild Wild West(1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), De-Lovely (2004), The Conspirator (2010), My Old Lady (2014), and Beauty and the Beast (2017).[3] Since 2011, Kline has had a recurring role on the animated comedy series Bob's Burgers.
== Early life ==
Kline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Margaret Agnes Kirk and Robert Joseph Kline (1909-1996).[4][5] His father was a classical music lover and an amateur opera singer who owned and operated The Record Bar, a record store in St. Louis that opened in the early 1940s, and sold toys during the 1960s and 1970s;[4][6] his father's family also owned Kline's Inc., a department store chain. Kline has described his mother as the "dramatic theatrical character in our family".[7] Kline's father was Jewish, from a family that had emigrated from Germany, and had become an agnostic. Kline's mother was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, the daughter of an emigrant from County Louth. Kline was raised in his mother's Catholic faith.[8] He has an older sister, Kate, and two younger brothers, Alexander and Christopher.[5]
He graduated from the Saint Louis Priory School in 1965.[9] In 1997, the school named its new auditorium as the Kevin Kline Theater in his honor. Kline performed selections from Shakespeare as a benefit at the dedication.
He attended Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was a classmate of actor Jonathan Banks. He began studying composing and conducting music, but switched to a theater and speech major for his last two years, graduating in 1970. Kline remembers: "When I switched to the Theater Department, all I did was theater...I could barely make it to class because this was my passion."[10]While an undergraduate, he was a co-founder of the Vest Pocket Players, an off-campus theatrical troupe.[11]
== Career ==
In 1970, Kline was awarded a scholarship to the newly formed Drama Division at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, he joined with fellow Juilliard graduates, including Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers, and formed the City Center Acting Company (now The Acting Company), under the aegis of John Houseman.[12][citation needed]
The Company traveled across the U.S. performing Shakespeare's plays, other classical works, and the musical The Robber Bridegroom, founding one of the most widely praised groups in American repertory theatre. At Juilliard, he studied singing with Beverley Peck Johnson.[13]
In 1976, Kline left The Acting Company and settled in New York City, doing a brief appearance as the character "Woody Reed" in the now-defunct soap opera Search for Tomorrow. He followed this with a return to the stage in 1977 to play Clym Yeobright opposite Donna Theodore as Eustacia Vye in The Hudson Guild Theater production of Dance on a Country Grave, Kelly Hamilton's musical version of Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native.[2] In 1978, he played the role of Bruce Granit, a matinée idol caricature, in Harold Prince's On the Twentieth Century, for which he won his first Tony Award. In 1981, Kline appeared with rock diva Linda Ronstadt and singer Rex Smith in the New York Shakespeare Festival's Central Park production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, winning another Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, for his comically dashing portrayal of the Pirate King.[2] In 1983, he played the role in a film version of the musical, also with Ronstadt, Smith and Angela Lansbury, which had a limited theatrical release.[14]
In the ensuing years, Kline appeared many times in New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Shakespeare plays, including starring roles in Richard III(1983),[15] Much Ado About Nothing (1988),[16] Henry V (1984),[17] and two productions of Hamlet, in 1986[18] and 1990 (which he also directed).[19] A videotape of the 1990 production has aired on PBS.
He also appeared in a Lincoln Center production that combined the two parts of Henry IV on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 2003 as Falstaff. Kline was nominated for the 2004 Tony Award, Actor in a Play.[20][21]
Dubbed "the American Olivier" by New York Times theater critic Frank Rich for his stage acting,[22] Kline finally ventured into film in 1982 in Sophie's Choice. He won the coveted role of the tormented and mercurial Nathan opposite Meryl Streep. Streep won an Academy Award for her performance in the film. Kline was nominated for a 1983 Golden Globe award (New Star of the Year)[23] and BAFTA Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer To Film.[24]
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Kline made several films with director Lawrence Kasdan, including The Big Chill, Silverado, Grand Canyon, I Love You to Death, and French Kiss. He played Donald Woods in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom opposite Denzel Washington about the friendship between Activist Stephen Biko and editor Donald Woods.
In 1989, Kline won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the British comedy A Fish Called Wanda, in which he played a painfully inept American ex-CIA thug opposite John Cleese's genteel British barrister and Jamie Lee Curtis' femme fatale/con woman. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film twenty-first on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.[25]
Other awards have included Drama Desk Awards, Golden Globe awards, a Gotham Award, a Hasty Pudding Theatricals Man of the Year Award, and a St. Louis International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted in the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2003.[26] He has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[27] Film reviewers have praised Kline. Newsday critic Lynn Darling wrote on July 13, 1988, that Kline "has proved himself to be one of the most talented and versatile American actors of his generation."
Kline played the title role in King Lear at the Public Theater and took the lead role in a Broadway production of Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Jennifer Garner. That production was forced to close temporarily after only 11 performances as a result of the Broadway stagehands' strike,[28] but subsequently reopened. Cyrano was filmed in 2008 and aired as part of PBS's Great Performances series in January 2009.
In January 2008, Kline won a Screen Actors Guild award for his portrayal of Jaques in Kenneth Branagh's film As You Like It, adapted from Shakespeare's play. The film premiered theatrically in 2006 in Europe. It bypassed theatres and was sent straight to HBO in the U.S. Kline's film The Conspirator premiered during the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 and was described as an "old-fashioned historical thriller". It was well received by most critics. Kline also starred in the 2012 comedy Darling Companion alongside Diane Keaton. In 2017, Kline returned to Broadway in a revival of the play Present Laughter, for which he received his third Tony Award.
In December 2004, Kline became the 2,272nd recipient of a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame,[29] for his contributions to the motion picture industry, located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.[30]
== Personal life ==
Kline met actress Phoebe Cates in 1983. They began dating in 1985 and married in 1989. The couple live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. They have two children, Owen (born 1991) and Greta (1994), who fronts the band Frankie Cosmos.[31]
After his son, Owen, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, Kline became active with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In November 2004, he was presented with the JDRF's Humanitarian of the Year award by Meryl Streep for his volunteer efforts on behalf of the organization.[citation needed]
The Kevin Kline Awards honor theatre professionals in St. Louis in an array of categories, which include best actor and actress, set design, choreography, and new play or musical.[32][33][34]
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
Title 	Year	Role 	Notes
Sophie's Choice 	1982	Nathan Landau 	
The Pirates of Penzance 	1983	The Pirate King 	
The Big Chill 	1983	Harold Cooper 	
Silverado 	1985	Paden 	
Violets Are Blue 	1986	Henry Squires 	
Cry Freedom 	1987	Donald Woods 	
A Fish Called Wanda 	1988	Otto West 	Won - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The January Man 	1989	Nick Starkey 	
I Love You to Death 	1990	Joey Boca 	
Soapdish 	1991	Jeffery Anderson / Dr. Rod Randall 	
Grand Canyon 	1991	Mack 	
Consenting Adults 	1992	Richard Parker 	
Chaplin 	1992	Douglas Fairbanks 	
Dave 	1993	Dave Kovic / President William Harrison Mitchell 	
The Nutcracker 	1993	Narrator 	Voice
Princess Caraboo 	1994	Frixos 	
French Kiss 	1995	Luc Teyssier 	
The Hunchback of Notre Dame 	1996	Captain Phoebus 	Voice
The Ice Storm 	1997	Ben Hood 	
Fierce Creatures 	1997	Vince McCain / Rod McCain 	
In & Out 	1997	Howard Brackett 	
A Midsummer Night's Dream 	1999	Nick Bottom 	
Wild Wild West 	1999	U.S. Marshal Artemus "Artie" Gordon / President Ulysses S. Grant	
The Road to El Dorado 	2000	Tulio 	Voice
The Anniversary Party 	2001	Cal Gold 	
Life as a House 	2001	George Monroe 	
The Make Big Thing 	2001	Away "Sita" Castly 	Voice
Orange County 	2002	Marcus Skinner 	Uncredited Cameo[citation needed]
The Hunchback of Notre Dame II	2002	Captain Phoebus 	Voice
The Emperor's Club 	2002	William Hundert 	
De-Lovely 	2004	Cole Porter 	
The Pink Panther 	2006	Chief Inspector Dreyfus 	
A Prairie Home Companion 	2006	Guy Noir 	
As You Like It 	2006	Jaques 	
Trade 	2007	Ray Sheridan 	
Definitely, Maybe 	2008	Hampton Roth 	
The Tale of Despereaux 	2008	Andre 	Voice
Queen to Play 	2009	Docteur Kröger 	
The Extra Man 	2010	Henry Harrison 	
No Strings Attached 	2011	Alvin Franklin 	
The Conspirator 	2011	Edwin Stanton 	
Darling Companion 	2012	Dr. Joseph Winter 	
Last Vegas 	2013	Sam Harris 	
The Last of Robin Hood 	2013	Errol Flynn 	
My Old Lady 	2014	Mathias Gold 	
Ricki and the Flash 	2015	Pete 	
Dean 	2016	Robert 	
Beauty and the Beast 	2017	Maurice 	
=== Television ===
Title 	Year 	Role 	Notes
Search for Tomorrow 	1976 	Woody Reed 	
The Time of Your Life 	1976 	McCarthy 	TV movie
The CBS Festival of Lively Arts for Young People	1977 	Petruchio 	Episode: "Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare"
The Pirates of Penzance 	1980 	The Pirate King 	TV movie
Saturday Night Live 	1988–93 	Himself (host) 	2 episodes
Hamlet 	1990 	Hamlet 	TV movie
Merlin and the Dragons 	1991 	Narrator 	TV movie
Freedom: A History of Us 	2003 	Various 	Voice role; 7 episodes
Cyrano de Bergerac 	2008 	Cyrano de Bergerac 	TV movie
Bob's Burgers 	2011–present	Mr. Calvin Fischoeder	Voice role; 30 episodes
Maya & Marty 	2016 	Husband 	Episode: "Will Forte, Amy Poehler and Jerry Seinfeld"
== Awards and nominations ==
Year	Association 	Category 	Nominated work 	Result
1978	Drama Desk Awards 	Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical 	On the Twentieth Century	Won
1978	Tony Awards 	Best Featured Actor in a Musical 	On the Twentieth Century	Won
1981	Tony Awards 	Best Actor in a Musical 	The Pirates of Penzance 	Won
1981	Drama Desk Awards 	Outstanding Actor in a Musical 	The Pirates of Penzance 	Won
1982	BAFTA Awards 	Best Newcomer 	Sophie's Choice 	Nominated
1982	Golden Globe Awards 	New Star of the Year - Actor 	Sophie's Choice 	Nominated
1988	Academy Awards 	Best Supporting Actor 	A Fish Called Wanda 	Won
1988	BAFTA Awards 	Best Actor in a Leading Role 	A Fish Called Wanda 	Nominated
1991	Golden Globe Awards 	Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	Soapdish 	Nominated
1993	Golden Globe Awards 	Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	Dave 	Nominated
1997	Golden Globe Awards 	Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	In & Out 	Nominated
1997	MTV Movie Awards 	Best Kiss (shared with Tom Selleck) 	In & Out 	Nominated
1997	Satellite Awards 	Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	In & Out 	Nominated
2001	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role 	Life as a House 	Nominated
2004	Drama Desk Awards 	Outstanding Actor in a Play 	Henry IV 	Won
2004	Tony Awards 	Best Actor in a Play 	Henry IV 	Nominated
2004	Golden Globe Awards 	Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	De-Lovely 	Nominated
2004	Satellite Awards 	Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	De-Lovely 	Nominated
2006	Screen Actors Guild 	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie	As You Like It 	Won
2008	Primetime Emmy Awards 	Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie 	Cyrano de Bergerac 	Nominated
2009	Screen Actors Guild 	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie	Cyrano de Bergerac 	Nominated
2017	Drama League Award 	Distinguished Performance 	Present Laughter 	Nominated
2017	Drama Desk Awards 	Outstanding Actor in a Play 	Present Laughter 	Won
2017	Tony Awards 	Best Actor in a Play 	Present Laughter 	Won
2017	Primetime Emmy Awards 	Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance 	Bob's Burgers 	Nominated
Category:1947 births
Category:Actors
Category:American Actors
Category:Stage Actor
Category:Singer
Category:Beauty And The Beast 2017
Category:The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Category:The Road To El Dorado
Category:Disney's Beauty and the Beast
Category:Living people