James Woods celebrates 78 today
Wood’s film debut came in the mid‑1970s, but he broke through with a magnetic performance as a tortured photojournalist in Oliver Stone’s “Salvador,” earning his first Academy Award nomination and later delivered a chilling portrayal of real‑life Klansman Byron De La Beckwith in the 1996 “Ghosts of Mississippi,” which brought him a second Oscar nod
James Woods celebrates 78 today
James Woods was born James Howard Woods on April 18, 1947, in Vernal, Utah. The son of Martha Pitman, a music teacher, and Gail Woods, a justice of the peace, he grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he discovered a love for acting in high‑school plays. After studying political science at MIT and earning a reputation for intensity in campus productions, he left academia to pursue a career on stage in New York City.
Wood’s film debut came in the mid‑1970s, but he broke through with a magnetic performance as a tortured photojournalist in Oliver Stone’s “Salvador” (1986), earning his first Academy Award nomination. He followed that with a turn as a paranoid TV director in David Cronenberg’s cult classic “Videodrome” (1983) and later delivered a chilling portrayal of real‑life Klansman Byron De La Beckwith in “Ghosts of Mississippi” (1996), which brought him a second Oscar nod. Equally at home in comedy and drama, he voiced the cunning god Hades in Disney’s “Hercules” (1997) and played mobsters, politicians and journalists in films like “Casino” (1995), “Nixon” (1995) and “Wonder Boys” (2000).
On television, Woods starred as the charismatic but ruthless attorney Sebastian Stark in the legal drama “Shark” (2006–2008) and made memorable guest appearances on series including “Entourage” and “Family Guy.” A fiercely private person off‑screen, he’s remained active in both film and voice work into the 2020s, known for a razor‑sharp intensity and an ability to disappear completely into each role he takes on.
Watch James Woods in action in a clip from the 1994 movie “The Specialist”
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