Biography: Scott Glenn was born January, 26, 1941, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As he grew up in Appalaches, his health was poor; he was bed-ridden for a year and doctors predicted he would limp for the rest of his life. During long periods of illness, Glenn was reading a lot and "dreaming of becoming Lord Byron." He challenged his illness by intense training programs and eventually got rid of his limp.
G ... show all Scott Glenn was born January, 26, 1941, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As he grew up in Appalaches, his health was poor; he was bed-ridden for a year and doctors predicted he would limp for the rest of his life. During long periods of illness, Glenn was reading a lot and "dreaming of becoming Lord Byron." He challenged his illness by intense training programs and eventually got rid of his limp.
Glenn entered William and Mary College where he majored in English. He spent three years in the Marines and then tried to combine his passion for storytelling with his passion for adventures by working for five months as a criminal reporter at the Kenosha Evening News. Glenn planned to become an author but found out he had "problems with dialogs," so he decided to overcome it by studying acting. In 1966, he headed to New York where he joined George Morrison acting class. He helped in directing student plays to pay for his studies and appeared onstage in La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club productions. Soon after arriving to New York, Glenn became a fan of martial arts. In 1968 he joined The Actors Studio and began working in professional theatre and TV. In 1970 James Bridges offered him his first movie work in "The Baby Maker (1970)".
Glenn left for L.A., where he spent seven "most miserable years of [his] life." He couldn't find interesting film roles and, doing brief TV stints, he felt "like a person who had to paint the Sistine Chapel with a house-painter's brush." On a brighter side, he worked episodically with Jonathan Demme ("The Angels Hard as They Come (1971)", "Fighting Mad (1976)"), Robert Altman ("Nashville (1975)") and Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now (1979)_ ). In 1978 Glenn got tired of Hollywood and moved his family to Ketchum, Idaho, where he worked as barman, huntsman and mountain ranger for two years (occasionally acting in Seattle stage productions). James Bridges once more changed the course of Glenn's life in 1980 when he offered him the role of Travolta's rival in "Urban Cowboy (1980)" and made him a star. Glenn's acting abilities and physical presence helped him to excel both in action ("Silverado (1985)", "Challenge (1982)") and drama ("The Right Stuff (1983)", "The Countdown to Looking Glass (1984) (TV)", "River (1984)") as he alternately played good guys and bad guys.
In the beginning of the '90s, his career was at its peak - he appeared in such indisputable masterpieces as "The Silence of the Lambs (1991)", "The Hunt for Red October (1990)"and "The Player (1992)". Later he gravitated toward more kinky stuff, such as black Freudian farce "Reckless (1995/I)", tragicomedy _Edie & Pen (1997)_ and Ken Loach's socio-political declaration "Carla's Song (1996)". Today Glenn alternates mainstream ("Courage Under Fire (1996)", "Absolute Power (1997)"), with independent projects ("Lesser Prophets (1997)" and "Larga distancia (1998)", written by his daughter Dakota Glenn) and TV ("Naked City: A Killer Christmas (1998) (TV)"). hide |
