|
James Spader
Scroll down for movie list.
Spouse
Victoria Spader
(1987 - present) 2 children
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
For a time the screen's premier delineator of devious, unprincipled yuppies and WASPs from Hell, this talented young actor could become one of the 1990s' most formidable leading men. Spader, the son of teachers, dropped out of prep school in the 11th grade to pursue an acting career in New York. His feature film debut, in Endless Love (1981), was followed by turns in exploitation pictures such as Tuff Turf (1985) and The New Kids (1985), and TV work including a stint as Robert Mitchum's son in A Killer in the Family (1983). Spader's unctuous "charm" enlivened Pretty in Pink (1986), Mannequin, Baby Boom, Less Than Zero (delivering that film's best performance as a yuppie drug dealer), and Wall Street (all 1987). He starred in Jack's Back (1988, as a possible modern-day Jack the Ripper) and The Rachel Papers (1989), but he really hit his stride as the sexually troubled young man in sex, lies, and videotape (also 1989), for which he won the Best Actor award at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.
Spader's reputation cemented, he starred in Bad Influence (1990), playing a gullible young businessman opposite manipulative psycho Rob Lowe (in what would earlier have been a Spaderesque turn) and White Palace (also 1990), as a callow preppie who falls for earthy waitress Susan Sarandon. In other words, he was still playing yuppies, albeit sympathetic ones. True Colors (1991) saw him pitted against former friend and law-school classmate John Cusack, and in Storyville (1992) he played a young politician entwined in a web of deceit. Recent credits include Bob Roberts (also 1992, in a hilarious cameo as a newscaster), the oddball, existential The Music of Chance (1993), the werewolf saga Wolf (as another scummy yuppie), Stargate and Dream Lover (all 1994). Spader is a great fan of Charles Laughton, and has said he aspires to great roles like his in the years ahead. |  |
