A modern acting dynasty founded by father Lloyd Bridges (1913–1998) and sustained by two of his three sons, Beau Bridges (1941– ) and Jeff Bridges (1949– ). Lloyd had only modest success as a film actor, becoming far more famous as a TV star, but his two sons have had substantial movie careers, with Beau developing from child actor to leading man to character actor, and Jeff becoming a bona fide movie star almost from the very beginning of his days in front of the camera in the early 1970s.
Lloyd Bridges was a stage actor during the 1930s, making an impressive debut on Broadway in a radical interpretation of Othello late in the decade. Tall, blond, and handsome, he was a natural for the movies. By 1941 he was acting in films, making his movie debut in The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance. For the most part, he appeared in supporting roles in minor films such as Two Latins from Manhattan (1941) and Alias Boston Blackie (1942), but he also showed promise in more important movies, including Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Talk of the Town (1942), Sahara (1943), and A Walk in the Sun (1945). Bridges was given better roles, if in lesser movies, during the second half of the decade, often in westerns.
His most notable role in the early 1950s was in support of Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952). It was a role of deep significance because the film was intended as a subtle statement against the paralysis exhibited by the country in the face of McCarthyism. Ironically, Bridges became a witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 1950s. He admitted to being a communist during the 1930s, and he named others in Hollywood who had also flirted with left-wing politics, many of whom were then blacklisted from the industry.
Bridges went on to make a great many films during the next several decades, few of them of any merit. He earned his fame as the star of the syndicated TV series Sea Hunt during the 1950s. His film career was resurrected during the 1980s when he gave two hilarious performances in key supporting roles in the comedy hits Airplane! (1980) and its sequel, Airplane II (1982), as well as a highly praised performance in Cousins (1989). Like actor Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges opted for comic roles during the 1990s, including Joe vs. the Volcano (1990), the popular Honey, I Blew Up the Kids (1992), Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), in which he reprised his role in the popular TV series, Sea Hunt, and Mafia! (1998), a spoof of the Godfather films.
Beau Bridges, born Lloyd Vernet Bridges III, was very effective as a child actor in, among other films, Force of Evil (1948) and The Red Pony (1949). But Beau was more interested in basketball than in acting, and he pursued an athletic career until his lack of height (he’s 5'9") forced him to reset his goals. He began to act again in the early 1960s but without much success, until the latter part of the decade when he began to receive favorable reviews in films such as The Incident (1967), For Love of Ivy (1968), Gaily, Gaily (1969), and The Landlord (1970). Winsome and convincing, the actor displayed a youthful vulnerability in these films, but despite good notices, few were successful at the box office. Although he appeared in fine movies such as Lovin’ Molly (1974), he was soon being cast in supporting roles in vehicles for other stars, most notably for Richard Pryor in Greased Lightning (1977), Dick Van Dyke in The Runner Stumbles (1979), and Sally Field in Norma Rae (1979).
During the 1980s, he often appeared in TV movies as well as in feature films. He can be seen in movies such as Love Child (1982), Heart Like a Wheel (1983), and The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), to name just a few. Beau Bridges played Nixon in Kissinger and Nixon, winning an Emmy Award in 1996 for his performance. Among his other television appearances were Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991) and the CBS television series The Agency (2001–03), in which he played the director of the CIA. He has won three Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes.
Meanwhile, Beau’s younger brother, Jeff, has had an electric career that began almost from his first performance. After his film debut in Halls of Anger (1970) at the age of 21, the taller and more rugged looking Bridges boy gained national recognition in Peter Bogdanovich’s sleeper hit, The Last Picture Show (1971). Nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance in that film as a charming bad boy, he continued to enhance his likable wiseguy image for a good many years to follow.
Although not all of Jeff’s subsequent movies were hits, a surprisingly large number of them were favorably received and had cult followings, among them John Huston’s Fat City (1972), The Last American Hero (1973), Rancho Deluxe (1975), and Hearts of the West (1975).
Jeff Bridges is a strong actor who proved that he could hold his own with Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1975). His reputation as an actor and as a potential major star were such that he was later given the lead role in the illadvised remake of King Kong (1976).
He survived that debacle and went on to solidify his acting credentials in films such as Stay Hungry (1976), Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978), and Winter Kills (1979). Then he appeared in yet another disaster, Heaven’s Gate (1980), but that bomb didn’t destroy his career either. Several years of flops during the early 1980s, however, nearly did the trick. Cutter and Bone (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), The Last Unicorn (1982), Tron (1982), and Against All Odds (1984) were all box office duds. It wasn’t until he gave a charming and effective performance in the science fiction/comedy hit Starman (1984) that his career began to soar again.
In more recent years, he has been in several critical and/or box-office winners such as Jagged Edge (1985), The Morning After (1986), Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: A Man and His Dreams (1988), and The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), with brother Beau. During the 1990s, Jeff Bridges appeared in several films, the most notable of which were The Fisher King (1991), the American remake of The Vanishing (1993), Blown Away (1994) with his father, Walter Hill’s western Wild Bill (1995), Ridley Scott’s sea adventure White Squall (1996), the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1997), and the politicalparanoia thriller Arlington Road (1999). In 2000 Jeff Bridges earned an Oscar nomination for his role in The Contender, plying the president of the United States. This was followed in 2001 by Ian Softley’s peculiar alien visitation film, K-PAX, and a galloping good performance in Seabiscuit (2003).
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