Woodrow Tracy
"Woody" Harrelson (born July 23,
1961) is an American
actor.
Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television
sitcom Cheers as
bartender
Woody Boyd. Notable film
characters include basketball hustler Billy Hoyle in
White Men Can't Jump, bowler Roy
Munson in
Kingpin, serial
killer Mickey Knox in
Natural
Born Killers, magazine publisher
Larry Flynt in
The People vs. Larry Flynt,
country singer Dusty in
A Prairie Home
Companion, bounty hunter Carson Wells in
No Country for Old Men,
Tallahassee in
Zombieland, blind
piano player/meat salesman in
Seven
Pounds and as Charlie Frost in the movie
2012.
Early life
Harrelson
was born in Midland
, Texas
, the son of
Diane Lou (née Oswald) and
Charles Voyde Harrelson, who
divorced in 1964; he has two brothers, Jordan and Brett, the latter
of whom is a professional motorcycle racer. In 1979, in San
Antonio, Federal Judge
John H.
Wood, Jr. was shot and killed by
rifle fire. Woody's father Charles Harrelson, who was a freelance
contract killer, was arrested for
the killing. He was convicted and eventually died during his life
sentence in maximum security prison. Harrelson shares his birthday
with his father.
Harrelson
grew up in Lebanon,
Ohio
with his mother. Harrelson attended
Lebanon High
School
, working through much of high school as a
wood-carver at Kings
Island
amusement park. He later attended
Hanover
College
in Hanover, Indiana
, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He received a
bachelor of arts in theater arts and English in 1983.
Career
Television career
Harrelson is widely known for his work on the NBC sitcom
Cheers. He played bartender
Woody Boyd, who replaced Coach (played by
Nicholas Colasanto, who died in
the third season). He joined the cast in season four and lasted
eight seasons on the show. For this role, Harrelson has been
nominated for five Emmy Awards, winning once in 1989.
His character of Boyd
was said to be from Hanover, Indiana, the town where Harrelson attended
college.
In 1999, Harrelson guest-starred in the
Cheers spin-off
success
Frasier, in which he
reprised the role of Woody Boyd. Harrelson was nominated for an
Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for this
performance.
He appeared in several 2001 episodes of
Will and Grace as Grace's new
boyfriend.
In the November 12, 2009 episode of the Comedy Central show
The Colbert Report,
Harrelson was interviewed by Stephen Colbert to promote his
upcoming movie
The
Messenger. In response to Colbert's questioning of his
support for the troops, Harrelson agreed to let Colbert shave his
head on camera.
Movie career
After the end of
Cheers, Harrelson pursued a film career.
His first movie had been
Wildcats, a football comedy in 1986
with
Goldie Hawn. Harrelson became
friends with
Wesley Snipes and starred
with him in the box-office hit
White Men Can't Jump and
Money Train.
In 1993 he had a starring role opposite
Robert Redford and
Demi
Moore in the drama
Indecent
Proposal. After that film's success, Harrelson played
Mickey Knox in
Oliver Stone's
Natural Born Killers
and Dr. Michael Raynolds in the
Michael
Cimino film
The
Sunchaser. In 1996, he starred in the comedy
Kingpin alongside
Randy Quaid and
Vanessa
Angel.
Harrelson's career gained great momentum when he starred in the
Milos Forman film
The People vs. Larry Flynt,
in which he played
Larry Flynt, a
pornographic publisher and founder of
Hustler magazine. The film was a success and
Harrelson's performance as Larry Flynt was nominated for a Golden
Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor. The Oscar went to
Geoffrey Rush for his performance in
Shine.
After that, Harrelson was cast more serious film roles. He starred
in the 1997 war film
Welcome to
Sarajevo and also in 1997 had a featured role as Sergeant
Schumann in
Wag the Dog. In
1998, Harrelson starred in the thriller
Palmetto and played Sergeant Keck in
The Thin Red
Line, a war film nominated for seven
Academy Awards in 1999.
Harreslon made other films such as
The Hi-Lo Country and portrayed Ray
Pekurny in the teen comedy
EDtv. Also
in 1999, he appeared as boxer Vince Boudreau in the
Ron Shelton film
Play It to the Bone.
Harrelson didn't appear in movies again until 2003 when he
co-starred as Security Guard Gary in the comedy film
Anger Management. He appeared in the
action film
After the
Sunset and the comedy
She
Hates Me.
In 2005, Harrelson was in
The Big
White and
North
Country. Also in 2005 he appeared as Kelly Ryan, husband
of a contest-obsessed woman in the film
The Prize Winner of Defiance,
Ohio. Harrelson made two films in 2006, the animated film
version of
Free Jimmy and also
A Scanner Darkly.
In 2007 he played Carter Page III, escort of privileged Washington
D.C. women, in the film
The
Walker.
In the Oscar-winning 2007 crime thriller
No Country for Old Men,
Harrelson had a small but key role as Carson Wells, a bounty
hunter. The film won
Best Picture and
Best Director for
Joel Coen and
Ethan
Coen. Harrelson also won a
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best
Cast, along with
Tommy Lee Jones,
Javier Bardem,
Josh Brolin and
Kelly
Macdonald.
In 2008, Harrelson appeared in several films, among them the
Will Ferrell basketball comedy
Semi-Pro and the
Will Smith stark drama
Seven Pounds. In 2009, he co-starred in
the horror comedy
Zombieland and
Roland Emmerich's
2012 as Charlie Frost, a man who warns of
the end of the world. His upcoming projects include
The Messenger,
Defendor,
Pinkville,
The
Other Side, and
Bunraku. All have been scheduled
for release in 2009.
Stage career
In 1999
Harrelson directed his own play, Furthest from the Sun, at
the theater de la Juene Luene in Minneapolis
. He followed next in Roundabout's Broadway
rival at the N.
Richard Nash
played The Rainmaker in 2000, Sam Shepard's The Late
Henry Moss in 2001, Joan Kolvenbach's On an Average
Day opposite Kyle MacLachlan in
London's West End in the fall of 2002, and in the summer of 2003,
Harrelson directed the Toronto
premiere of
Kenneth Lonergang's This is Our Youth at the Berkley
Street Theater. In the winter of 2005/2006 Harrelson
returned to London's West End, starring in Tennessee Williams'
Night of the Iguana at the
Lyric Theater.
Personal life
In 1985,
Harrelson married Nancy Simon, daughter of playwright Neil Simon, in Tijuana
. The
two intended to divorce the following day, but the storefront
marriage/divorce parlor was closed when they had returned to it,
and the two remained married for ten months.
On December 28, 2008, Harrelson married Laura Louie, his girlfriend
since 1987. The couple have three daughters, Deni Montana (born
February 28, 1993), Zoe Giordano (born September 22, 1996), and
Makani Ravello (born June 3, 2006). When announcing Makani's birth,
the couple referred to the three as their "goddess trilogy". Laura
is his former assistant and a co-founder of Yoganics, an
organic food delivery service.
Harrelson's father, a convicted career criminal and hitman, died in
Federal Supermax Prison. Harrelson tried to have his father's final
conviction for murdering a federal judge reversed, but failed. His
father was convicted of murder for hire once before which was
related to illegal drug sales, an event which occurred in the late
1960's.
Activist work
Woody Harrelson in 2004
is a supporter and an activist for the legalization of
marijuana and
hemp.
On June
1, 1996, he was arrested in Lee County, Kentucky
, after he symbolically planted four hemp seeds to
challenge the state law which did not distinguish between
industrial hemp and marijuana. Harrelson won the case. Since
2003, Harrelson serves as a member on
NORML's
advisory board.
Harrelson is also an environmental activist.
He once scaled the
Golden Gate
Bridge
in San Francisco
with members of North Coast Earth First! group to unfurl a banner that
read, "Hurwitz, Aren't ancient redwoods more precious than gold?"
in protest of Maxxam Inc/PALCO CEO Charles Hurwitz, who once
stated, "He who has the gold, makes the rules".
He once traveled to the west coast in the U.S. on a bike and a
domino caravan with a hemp oil-fueled
biodiesel bus (the subject of the independent
documentary,
Go Further) and
narrated the documentary
Grass.
Harrelson briefly
owned an oxygen bar in West
Hollywood
called "O2". He is a peace activist and has
often spoken publicly against the
2003 invasion of Iraq. Harrelson is
also a vegan and raw foodist. He did not eat
Twinkies for his movie
Zombieland, replacing them with vegan
faux-Twinkies made from
cornmeal.
In
October 2009, he was conferred an honorary degree by York
University
for his
contributions in the fields of environmental education,
sustainability, and activism.
He now lives on Maui, Hawaii in a mostly self-sustained
community.
Filmography
References
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIBQn3hZTN0&feature=sub
Woody harrelson Talks About Eating Faux Twinkies. Jimmy Kimmel
Live
- Activist, actor Woody Harrelson receives honorary
degree at York U convocation
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