Actor Jeff Bridges (Photo: Getty Images / Getty Images)

For decades, referring to Jeff Bridges as one of Hollywood’s “most underrated actors” was something of a cliché in the film critic world, where this second generation leading man was hailed for eschewing flashy blockbuster roles in favor of creating characters of real substance. Bridges was rarely a box office champ, but built up a loyal following for the relaxed, naturalistic performance style he showcased in “The Fabulous Baker Boys” (1989), “The Big Lebowski” (1998), and “Crazy Heart” (2009). When not disappearing into bohemian characters whose devil-may-care attitude masks an existential melancholy, Bridges excelled at authority figures with conflicted internal workings, as in “The Contender” (2000), “Seabiscuit” (2003) and “Iron Man” (2008). Bridges was essentially a character actor with leading man looks who was luckily able to survive 40 years in Hollywood without ever resorting to the broad self-parody of contemporaries like Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. Thanks to his everyman quality, film execs and audiences accepted Bridges in a wide range of genres, where his talent for complex, morally ambiguous characters was so strong that the actor was often accused him of playing himself.

The son of famed actor Lloyd Bridges and the younger brother of actor Beau Bridges, Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on Dec. 4, 1949, in Los Angeles, CA. Destined by blood to go into the family profession, Jeff Bridges made his first screen appearance at the tender age of four months, playing Jane Greer's infant son in "The Company She Keeps" (1950). Growing up, he and his brother Beau got some valuable early acting experience playing drowning victims and the like on their father Lloyd's popular undersea adventure series, "Sea Hunt" (Synd., 1957-1961). As Bridges recalled to The London Times in 1999: "[My dad would] always say, 'Do you want this part? You'll be gone from school for a couple of weeks.' And when you're eight years old, it's kind of fun." The brothers also popped up occasionally on their father’s subsequent TV venture, "The Lloyd Bridges Show" (CBS, 1962-63). Fun and games aside, however, the experience of seeing their father become typecast after “Sea Hunt” also taught the junior Bridges a valuable lesson about diversifying one’s roles.

In 1971, Bridges joined the ensemble cast of director Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show" – an adaptation of the award-winning novel by Larry McMurtry. A coming of age tale set a small Texas town in the 1950s, “Picture Show” earned the 23-year-old Bridges his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the boyishly charming Duane Jackson. Bridges further enhanced his image in a series of quality projects, beginning with John Huston's "Fat City" (1972) as a struggling boxer, and Robert Benton's directorial debut, "Bad Company" (1972), in which he played a likable, if untrustworthy con artist who drifts into lawlessness in the post-Civil War west. The following year, Bridges brought a three-dimensional believability to his portrayal of moonshining stock-car racing legend Junior Jackson in "The Last American Hero" (1973). Later that year, Bridges subsequently stood tall amidst such heavy hitters as Robert Ryan, Fredric March and Lee Marvin in John Frankenheimer's filmic adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s "The Iceman Cometh” (1973).

Having grown in stature with each successive picture, Bridges was a revelation in Michael Cimino's directorial debut, "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974). Demonstrating his impressive acting range while exuding an effortless screen charisma, Bridges wound up stealing the picture right out from under its star, Clint Eastwood. When “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” earned Bridges another Best Supporting Actor nod, predictions abounded that the young actor would be the next big thing in Hollywood. Unfortunately, several ill-advised choices over the next few years ended up dampening Hollywood's enthusiasm for the actor – most notably his lead roles in the 1976 remake of "King Kong” and Michael Cimino's studio-killing epic drama-turned-failure, "Heaven's Gate" (1980).

Thankfully, Bridges was able to break his downward career freefall in the mid-1980s with a number of timely commercial hits. The first was director Taylor Hackford’s "Against All Odds" (1984), a loose remake of the 1947 drama “Out of the Past" (1947). The film, which co-starred Rachel Ward and James Woods, also featured a cameo by Bridges’ “first” leading lady, Jane Greer, as his mother. Later that year, Bridges earned his first Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his low-key portrayal of the titular Earth-bound alien in the science-fiction drama, “Starman” (1984). Over the course of filming, Bridges kicked off a lifelong friendship with “Starman” director John Carpenter, who gushed to Larry Worth of The New York Post: "[Jeff is] the greatest, as an actor and a person. He's the best actor of his generation, bar none." A year later, Bridges would enjoy his greatest box-office success to date as a charismatic, successful businessman accused of a high-profile murder in the legal thriller, "Jagged Edge" (1985), co-starring Glenn Close.

Bridges proved utterly convincing as the almost neurotically optimistic, indomitable, all-American entrepreneur Preston Tucker in director Francis Ford Coppola’s, "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (1988) – a project which enabled him to act again with his father, Lloyd. Keeping things in the family, Bridges next teamed up with brother Beau to give a complex performance as Jack Baker, a once celebrated piano prodigy reduced to entertaining as a lounge lizard in "The Fabulous Baker Boys" (1989). A resounding critical success, the film earned co-star Michelle Pfeiffer her second Oscar nomination, but some found Bridges even more impressive. He continued to give typically strong, but underrated performances during the 1990’s. Often willing to drastically change his looks to suit a part, Bridges reprised the role of an older, fatter Duane Jackson in “Texasville" (1990), the long-awaited sequel to "The Last Picture Show." Set 30 years after the original movie, Bridges gained 20 pounds for his role as the Texas roughneck-turned-millionaire who is desperate to recapture his lost youth. Unfortunately, not even Bridges’ splendid chemistry with “Texasville” co-star, Annie Potts (as Duane’s wife) could save the film from failure.

Despite his up and down track record at the box office, Bridges nevertheless continued to grind out exemplary performances. The understated angst of his disk jockey character, Jack Lucas, in the gentle fantasy, "The Fisher King" (1991), again impressed critics by providing an effective counterpoint to the exuberant Robin Williams. Though Bridges wound up being overlooked by the Academy, the picture earned actress Mercedes Ruehl a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Bridges' girlfriend. For his next role as an ex-con seeking to reconcile with his wayward son, Bridges grew his hair out long and dramatically sculpted his physique for the respectfully reviewed indie, "American Heart" (1993). That same year, Bridges won