BRUCE DERN

(1936-, Chicago, Illinois)

Wiry, blue-eyed character actor and unorthodox leading man, often typecast as psychotic powder kegs – wackos with wolfish snarls and searing gazes, unmanageable hair and volatile emotions. Beneath this persona resides a far more dexterous performer.

The Wild Angels

Scion of a distinguished family (grandfather was Secretary of War under FDR; godfather was two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson). A natural nonconformist, he quit college for acting, moving to New York to study under Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan. (When cast as well-heeled Tom Buchanan in 1974’s The Great Gatsby, he found himself operating in a social milieu not unlike his own family’s: “Everything I was running away from,” he said.)

The Laughing Policeman

Broadway debut in 1958; regular TV work in early Sixties. Minor yet pivotal role as a sordid sailor in Hitchcock’s Marnie. (“Who would ever have believed after all these years that you would be my leading man?” Hitch said to Dern when they reteamed a decade later for Family Plot.) Thereafter specialised in slimeballs and madmen in exploitation movies – Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels and The Trip, Psych-Out, biker flicks, The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant.

Psych-Out

Diversified slightly with hair-trigger support slots in studio westerns, a snarky foil to macho megastars Clint Eastwood (Hang ’Em High), Charlton Heston (Will Penny) and John Wayne, famously killing the Duke in The Cowboys. Wryly undermined Kirk Douglas’s Nixonian marshal in the under-rated Posse.

His roster of misfits, eccentrics and malcontents embodied the ethos of Seventies cinema: prototype eco-warrior in Silent Running; charismatic huckster in The King of Marvin Gardens; damaged Vietnam vets in Black Sunday and Coming Home (Oscar-nominated for the latter); obsessive cop in The Driver, intent on nailing Ryan O’Neal’s hypothermic wheelman whatever the cost.

With Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens

Turned down the role of murderous fascist in 1900 eventually played by Donald Sutherland: “I had to rape a deaf girl and smash the kid’s head. I just didn’t see myself doing that.”

Fell off the radar in the Eighties and Nineties, without slowing down. Eye-catching turns as a deranged tattooist in trashy Tattoo; a lowlife kidnapper in neo-noir After Dark, My Sweet. Regained kudos as Aileen Wuornos’s confidant in Monster. Emmy-nominated for his Mormon patriarch in HBO series Big Love. Joined Quentin Tarantino’s rep troupe of venerable guest stars, playing unrepentant racists in Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight.

Black Sunday

With 2013’s Nebraska, the world reawakened to his talent. Cast as a cranky, drink-addled family man on a late-life road trip, he’s funny and poignant and refractory. Never once does he pitch for sympathy. It’s Dern’s About Schmidt (from the same director).

Married three times. Second marriage, to actress Diane Ladd, produced Laura Dern – erstwhile David Lynch muse and blockbuster dinosaur bait.

Still prolific at 80. At the time of writing he has eight films either running or in pre-production.

Five standout roles

As Freeman Lowell in futuristic fable Silent Running (1972), Dern’s modulation of ecopolitical issues shades from fervid to wistful to melancholic. Custodian of the last forest, floating in space, Lowell manifests the lost spirit of our species, eyes ablaze with awe at the “simple wonders” of nature for which the rest of humankind no longer cares. 

As Jason Staebler in The King of Marvin Gardens, he captures the ingratiating charm of a roguish entrepreneur, a self-delusional dreamer who drags despondent brother Jack Nicholson into a dubious get-rich-quick scheme in shabby Atlantic City. Like Dern’s flashy façade, the setting is a metaphor for the corrosion of the American dream.

As Jack Strawhorn in Posse, Dern shrewdly deploys a breezy manner that offsets Kirk Douglas’s uptight lawman, pinpointing the story’s anti-establishment bias with one of his most refined and disarming portrayals.

As Michael Lander, PoW turned blimp pilot in Black Sunday, Dern hits the psychotic high notes while plotting with Martha Keller a terrorist atrocity. But it’s the quieter moments – sweating it out in a counsellor’s waiting room; pining for absent loved ones – that testify to the breadth of the actor’s ability.

As the Detective in Walter Hill’s The Driver, he is a law unto himself. Involved in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with a getaway driver, he freely resorts to foul play. His air of smug self-confidence is punctured only briefly when the game goes against him. Kevin Grant