Scott Glenn

Scott Glenn
Glenn at the Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party in April 2011
Born
Theodore Scott Glenn

January 26[1]
Alma materCollege of William and Mary
OccupationActor
Years active1965–present
Spouse
Carol Schwartz
(m. 1968)
Children2

Theodore Scott Glenn (born January 26 between 1938 and 1942)[1] is an American actor. His roles have included Pfc Glenn Kelly in Nashville (1975), Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy (1980), astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff (1983), Emmett in Silverado (1985), Captain Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), John Adcox in Backdraft (1991), Bill Burton in Absolute Power (1997), Roger in Training Day (2001), Ezra Kramer in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Chris Chenery in Secretariat (2010), Kevin Garvey Sr. in the HBO series The Leftovers (2014–2017), and as Stick in the Netflix series Daredevil (2015–2016) and The Defenders (2017).

Early life

Glenn has Irish and Native American ancestry.[2] During his childhood, he was regularly ill, and for a year was bed-ridden, including having scarlet fever.[3] Through intense training in boxing, wrestling and tang soo do, he recovered from his illnesses, also overcoming a limp.[citation needed]

After graduating from a Pittsburgh High School, Glenn entered the College of William & Mary, where he majored in English. He joined the United States Marine Corps for three years, then worked for about seven months in 1963 as a news and sports reporter for the Kenosha News, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He tried to become an author, but found he could not write dialogue that satisfied the readers. To learn the art of dialogue, he began taking acting classes.[citation needed]

Career

Glenn made his Broadway debut in The Impossible Years in 1965. He joined George Morrison’s acting class, helping direct student plays to pay for his studies and appearing onstage in La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club productions.[citation needed]

In 1968, he joined The Actors Studio[4][5] and began working in professional theatre and TV. Two of Glenn's early television roles were as Hal Currin in the 1966 crime series Hawk, starring Burt Reynolds, and Calvin Brenner on the CBS daytime serial The Edge of Night. In 1970, director James Bridges offered him his first movie role, in The Baby Maker, released the same year.

Glenn spent eight years in Los Angeles, California, acting in small roles in films and doing TV stints, including a TV movie Gargoyles. In 1978, Glenn left Los Angeles with his family for Ketchum, Idaho, and worked as a barman, huntsman, and mountain ranger, occasionally acting in Seattle stage productions.[citation needed] He appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and worked with directors such as Jonathan Demme and Robert Altman.

In 1980, he appeared as ex-convict Wes Hightower in Bridges' Urban Cowboy. After that, he starred in the World War II horror film, The Keep (1983), and action films such as Wild Geese II (1985) opposite Laurence Olivier, Silverado (1985), and The Challenge (1982), and drama films such as The Right Stuff (1983), TV film Countdown to Looking Glass (1984), The River (1984), and Off Limits (1988) as he alternately played good guys and bad guys during the 1980s. He returned to Broadway in Burn This in 1987. That same year, he tried his hand at gangster movies when he starred as the real-life sheriff turned gunman Verne Miller in the movie Gangland: The Verne Miller Story, which was given a theatrical release only in Finland and went straight to video in the U.S.[citation needed]

In the beginning of the 1990s, Glenn's career was at its peak as he appeared in several well-known films, such as The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Backdraft (1991), and The Player (1992). He played a vicious mob hitman in a critically acclaimed performance in Night of the Running Man (1995). Later, he gravitated toward more challenging movie roles, such as in the Freudian farce Reckless (1995), tragicomedy Edie & Pen (1997), and Ken Loach's sociopolitical declaration Carla's Song. In the late 1990s, Glenn alternated between mainstream films (Courage Under Fire (1996), Absolute Power (1997)), independent projects (Lesser Prophets (1997) and Larga distancia (1998), written by his daughter Dakota Glenn) and TV (Naked City: A Killer Christmas (1998)). He was also cast in a supporting role in Training Day (2001). Glenn was cast in the FX drama Sons of Anarchy (2008), as Clay Morrow, but he was replaced after an early pilot episode by Ron Perlman.[6] He portrayed Eugene van Wingerdt in a leading role in the thriller film The Barber.[7] Glenn acted in the 2011 film Sucker Punch as Wise Man.

Glenn appeared in the drama Freedom Writers, in which he played the father of Hilary Swank's character, and in The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Legacy as CIA Director Ezra Kramer.

He played the character Stick in Netflix's television series Daredevil and returned to the character in The Defenders[8] series a year later.

In 2020 he played the grandfather in Greenland, opposite Gerard Butler & Morena Baccarin-- an apocalyptic thriller about a comet destroying most of Earth.

Personal life

He married Carol Schwartz in 1968 and upon their marriage, Glenn converted to Judaism, his wife's faith, from Catholicism.[9][2] They have two daughters.[9]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
1970 The Baby Maker Tad Jacks
1971 Angels Hard as They Come Long John
1972 She Came to the Valley Bill Lester
1973 Hex Jimbang
1975 Nashville Pfc. Glenn Kelly
1976 Fighting Mad Charlie Hunter
1979 She Came to the Valley Bill Lester
Apocalypse Now Captain Richard M. Colby
More American Graffiti Newt
1980 Urban Cowboy Wes Hightower
1981 Cattle Annie and Little Britches Bill Dalton
1982 Personal Best Terry Tingloff
The Challenge Rick
1983 The Right Stuff Alan Shepard
The Keep Glaeken
1984 The River Joe Wade
1985 Wild Geese II John Haddad
Silverado Emmett
1987 Gangland: The Verne Miller Story Verne Miller
Man on Fire Creasy
1988 Off Limits Colonel Dexter Armstrong
1989 Miss Firecracker Mac Sam
1990 The Hunt for Red October Captain Bart Mancuso
1991 The Silence of the Lambs Jack Crawford
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys H.D. Dalton
Backdraft John "Axe" Adcox Also performed stunts in the film
1992 The Player Himself
1993 Extreme Justice Dan Vaughn
Slaughter of the Innocents Stephen Broderick
1995 Night of the Running Man David Eckhart
The Spy Within William B. Rickman
Tall Tale J.P. Stiles
Reckless Lloyd
1996 Edie & Pen Harry
Courage Under Fire Tony Gartner
Carla's Song Bradley
1997 Absolute Power Agent Bill Burton
Lesser Prophets Iggy
1998 Firestorm Wynt Perkins
Larga distancia Senor Grem
1999 The Virgin Suicides Father Moody
The Last Marshal Cole
2000 Vertical Limit Montgomery Wick
2001 Training Day Roger
Buffalo Soldiers 1SG Robert E. Lee
The Shipping News Jack Buggit
2004 Puerto Vallarta Squeeze Clayton Price
2006 Journey to the End of the Night Sinatra
2007 Freedom Writers Steve Gruwell
The Bourne Ultimatum Ezra Kramer, Director of the CIA
Camille Sheriff Foster
2008 Surfer, Dude Alister Greenbough
Nights in Rodanthe Robert Torrelson
W. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
2010 Secretariat Christopher Chenery
2011 Sucker Punch The Wise Man / The General / The Bus Driver[10]
Magic Valley Ed Halfner
2012 The Paperboy W.W James
The Bourne Legacy Ezra Kramer, Director of the CIA
2014 The Barber Eugene Van Wingerdt / Francis Allen Visser
2015 Into the Grizzly Maze Sully
2020 Greenland Dale
2023 The Hill Red Murff [11]
TBA Eugene the Marine Gene Lee Grady [12]

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1965 The Patty Duke Show Harry / Waiter 2 episodes
1966 Hawk Hal Currin Episode: "Wall of Silence"
1967 N.Y.P.D. Roddy Episode: "The Pink Gumdrop"
1969 The Edge of Night Calvin Brenner Episode: "#1.3490", uncredited
1971 The Young Lawyers Nick Field Episode: "The Outspoken Silence"
1971–73 Ironside Lonnie Burnett / Frank Lenox 2 episodes
1972 The Streets of San Francisco Junkie Gambler Episode: "The Thirty-Year Pin", uncredited
Gargoyles James Reeger Television film
The Sixth Sense Mark Hall Episode: "And Scream by the Light of the Moon, the Moon"
1973 Emergency! Forklift Driver Episode: "Seance", uncredited
1975 Khan! Episode: "Triad"
1975 Baretta Dave Episode: "A Bite of the Apple"
1984 Countdown to Looking Glass Michael Boyle Television film
1986 As Summers Die Willie Croft
1988 Intrigue Crawford
1989 The Outside Woman Jesse Smith
1991 Women & Men 2 Henry
1993 Shadowhunter John Cain
1994 Past Tense Gene Ralston
1998 Naked City: Justice with a Bullet Sgt. Daniel Muldoon
Naked City: A Killer Christmas
2001 The Seventh Stream Owen Quinn
2003 A Painted House Eli "Pappy" Chandler
American Experience Narrator Voice
2 episodes
2004 Homeland Security Joe Johnson Television film
2005 Gone, But Not Forgotten Martin Darius / Peter Lake
Faith of My Fathers Jack McCain
Code Breakers Earl "Red" Blaik
2008 Monk Sheriff Rollins 2 episodes
2014–2017 The Leftovers Kevin Garvey Sr. 11 episodes
2015–2016 Marvel's Daredevil Stick 5 episodes
2017 The Defenders 6 episodes
2018 Castle Rock Alan Pangborn 8 episodes
2024 Bad Monkey Jim Yancy 5 episodes

References

  1. ^ a b 1939 are most commonly cited as the year of birth, though sources range from 1938 to 1942.
  2. ^ a b Archerd, Army (2002-03-05). "Friedkin wraps difficult 'Hunted' shoot". Variety. Archived from the original on 2016-02-01. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
  3. ^ Skipper, Clay; Marino, Nick (January 30, 2016). "Scott Glenn is a 75-Year-Old Knife-Fighting, Spear-Fishing Madman". GQ. Archived from the original on June 28, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  4. ^ Kolson, Ann (November 17, 1983). "Glenn Practices Hard to Make Roles Authentic". Ottawa Citizen. p. 90.
  5. ^ Garfield, David (1980). "Appendix: Life Members of The Actors Studio as of January 1980". A Player's Place: The Story of The Actors Studio. New York: MacMillan Publishing. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-0254-2650-4.
  6. ^ Carpenter, Susan (October 26, 2006). "Think Hamlet on Harleys". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 25, 2022. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
  7. ^ "'The Barber' Trailer Takes a Little Off the Top". Bloody Disgusting!. 2 March 2015. Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  8. ^ Perry, Spencer (November 2, 2016). "Scott Glenn, Rachael Taylor, and Rosario Dawson Confirmed for The Defenders". ComingSoon.net. Archived from the original on November 3, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  9. ^ a b "Scott Glenn Is Spaced Out, Wife Carol's Gone to Pot, but Both of Them Have the Right Stuff". People. Archived from the original on 2021-03-07. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  10. ^ Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub (2009-06-24). "Zack Snyder talks WATCHMEN Director's Cut Blu-ray, Comic-Con 2009, 300 Blu-ray, and SUCKER PUNCH". Collider. Archived from the original on 2012-11-08. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
  11. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (January 5, 2023). "Briarcliff Entertainment Acquires Dennis Quaid-Led Sports Drama 'The Hill;' Sets Wide Domestic Theatrical Release August 18". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  12. ^ Earl, William (October 23, 2024). "85-Year-Old Scott Glenn Stars in Bloody Action Thriller 'Eugene the Marine,' More Than 60 Years After Enlisting in Real Life (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved October 25, 2024.