Ed Harris

Season 7, Episode 702

Original Airdate: December 10, 2001

Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey on November 28, 1950. He attended Columbia University on a football scholarship but after completing his sophomore year, he transferred to Oklahoma State University to major in drama.

A year later, he caught the acting bug by playing King Arthur to standing ovations in a local production of Camelot. Convinced he could make it as an actor, Harris set off for Hollywood and in 1975, graduated from the California Institute for the Arts with a Fine Arts degree.

His first acting roles included stage productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and The Grapes of Wrath. Early film work included bit parts in The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), Coma (1978), Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band (1978), Borderline (1980) and Knightriders (1981).

Harris' break out performance came when he was cast as astronaut John Glenn in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff (1983). Although the film did not do well at the box office, Harris' performance won great reviews from the critics and finally set his career as a film star in motion.

Subsequent roles included Places in the Heart (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985), The Abyss (1989), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), The Firm (1993), and Nixon (1995). In 1995, Harris again returned to space, this time as Mission Control leader Gene Kranz in Ron Howard's box office smash Apollo 13. The performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1998, his eerie performance as the manipulative creator of Jim Carrey's world in Peter Weir's The Truman Show won him a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Other awards include an Obie Award for Best Actor in Fool of Love and a Tony nomination in 1986 for Precious Sons. Recent film appearances include Enemy at the Gates (2000), Absolute Zero (2000) and Buffalo Soldiers (2001). Harris directed himself to an Oscar-nomination for Best Actor in Pollock (2000), playing the title role of the abstract painter.

Harris has been married to actress Amy Madigan since 1982 and they have a daughter.