Kurt Russell Biography

Kurt Russell is a blue-eyed, square-jawed American actor best known for playing action heroes in the movies Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986).

Russell grew up in Hollywood; his dad was Bing Russell, a character actor on TV and a former baseball player and coach.

Kurt began acting before he was ten, and by the age of 12 was playing the title character in the TV series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963-64, with Charles Bronson).

Russell had a solid career on the big screen as the teen star of wholesome movies made by Disney, including Follow Me, Boys! (1966), The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968) and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969).

In the late 1970s he shifted his career focus to baseball. He played second base for three seasons in the minor leagues, but returned to the movie business in 1979 after injuries ended his baseball career.

He got rave reviews for his starring role in the TV movie Elvis (1979), and in the 1980s got famous as a big-screen action hero.

Russell also proved his versatility as an actor: He starred in Silkwood (1983, with Meryl Streep) and Tequila Sunrise (1988, with Mel Gibson); Swing Shift (1984, with Goldie Hawn) and Overboard (1987, also with Hawn); and The Mean Season (1985, with Andy Garcia) and The Best of Times (1986, with Robin Williams).

Boyish and easy-going, Russell claims to make movies with a workingman’s philosophy and no pretensions to art. For years he averaged at least one feature film a year.

Russell’s other movies include Stargate (1994, with James Spader), Miracle (2004), Quentin Tarantino‘s Grindhouse segment, Death Proof (2007, with Rose McGowan), Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017).