The Coen brothers certainly knew what they were doing
on deciding that Jeff Bridges would be the Big Lebowski. Only
an actor with his physical presence could play a character apparently
not giving a hoot for his appearance, but tremendously attractive,
supposedly indifferent towards everything, but in fact deeply
committed. Attractive and committed are two adjectives which can
be applied to Jeff Bridges ever since his earliest appearances.
Well, maybe not since the very earliest, given that the first
time his face was seen on a screen he was only four months old.
Everything has an explanation.
Son of actors Lloyd Bridges and Dorothy Simpson, Jeff and his
older brother Beau grew up surrounded by cinema, in the Hollywood
of the 50s and 60s. These were years of tremendous creativity
and Jeff Bridges wasn’t stuck for choice. He became a
painter – something he still does, an example of which
is his well-worth-the-visit web page, one of the most amusing
and imaginative around, in addition to enjoying the drawings
illustrating his latest movie, The Door in the Floor, he was
a musician and singer – in 2000 he brought out a record
entitled “Be Here Soon”, and has sung his own compositions
in various films, he also took an interest in photography –
he has just published a book of shots taken on film sets –
and above all became an actor. He wasn’t quite 21 when
he starred in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show.
Duane Jackson was the first of the series of rebel, unconventional
characters who have grown with him. Ernie, the young boxer in
Fat City, (John Huston); Jack, star of Rancho Deluxe, an important
film on the set of which he met Susan Geston, to whom he got
married in 1975 and with whom he has three children; Preston
Tucker, dreamy inventor of Coppola’s movie; Jack Baker,
solitary musician of The Fabulous Baker Boys (Steven Kloves);
Jack Lucas, the guilty yuppie turned Fisher King thanks to Terry
Gilliam; and his latest great character, Ted Cole, the storywriter
living a tragedy with Kim Basinger in Tod Williams’ The
Door in the Floor. These are only the ones that come to mind,
but there are lots more in a career of over thirty years and
almost fifty movies, the latest of which is Michael Traeger’s
The Moguls.
Aware of the terrible problem of hunger in the world, Jeff
Bridges is one of the leading voices of the End Hunger Network,
for which he received the Raul Julia Award in 2000. Four-times
nominated for an Oscar, in 1972, 1975, 1985 and 2001, the Donostia
Award this year presented to him by the San Sebastian Festival
recognizes a top-line actor and a person whom, like the wise
man in his web page, can be proud of obeying the five rules
for being happy: 1. Free your heart from hatred. 2. Free your
mind from worries. 3. Live simply. 4. Give more. 5. Expect less.
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