Bill Paxton is the director of "The Greatest Game Ever Played." This bio of Paxton is provided by Walt Disney Pictures.
Bill Paxton
Bill Paxton's career has been flourishing over the past several years as both an actor and a filmmaker.
Presently, Paxton has just completed THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED, a film he directed for Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on Mark Frost’s best selling book and is a true Horatio Alger story of an immigrant son, who at the age of twenty, qualifies to play in the 1913 U.S. Open. It opens nationwide September 30th, 2005.
Paxton made his feature directorial debut in 2002 with the critically acclaimed thriller FRAILTY. The film, which starred Paxton and Matthew McConaughey, received the National Board of Review's Special Mention for Excellence in Filmmaking.
Paxton has appeared in several blockbusters, accumulating worldwide box office numbers that surpass three billion dollars. In addition to Jim Cameron’s TITANIC, TRUE LIES and ALIENS, he starred with Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon in Ron Howard's APOLLO 13, and in Jan de Bont's TWISTER. Paxton appeared as the tough Texas billionaire in the action-thriller VERTICAL LIMIT, and as the captain in Jonathan Mostow’s WWII submarine hit U-571.
Moving to Hollywood from Fort Worth, Texas, Paxton began his career as a set dresser on Roger Corman's BIG BAD MAMA. After working in the art department on several features, he decided to move to New York to study acting. He returned to Los Angeles in 1980, where he met Jim Cameron while moonlighting as a set dresser on the low-budget sci-fi movie GALAXY OF TERROR. Subsequently, he started landing acting jobs – first in B-horror movies (MORTUARY, NIGHT WARNING) and later in studio films.
Paxton's critically lauded performance as the small-town sheriff in Carl Franklin's ONE FALSE MOVE marked his emergence as a leading man. In 1998, critic Roger Ebert cited Paxton as best actor of the year for his turn as Hank Mitchell in Sam Raimi's A SIMPLE PLAN. That same year, Paxton received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Colonel John Paul Vann in HBO's A BRIGHT SHINING LIE.
Paxton's diverse filmography also includes the action films STREETS OF FIRE, TRESPASS, NEAR DARK, and TOMBSTONE; the comedies WEIRD SCIENCE, INDIAN SUMMER, BROKEN LIZARD’S CLUB DREAD and this summer’s THUNDERBIRDS; and TRAVELLER – a film he produced, and in which he co-starred with Mark Wahlberg and Julianna Margulies.
In April, Paxton began filming the series BIG LOVE for HBO in which he plays a polygamist living with three wives and assorted children in three houses at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Salt Lake City suburbs. It co-stars Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, Bruce Dern, and Harry Dean Stanton; the Producer is his APOLLO 13 co-star Tom Hanks. The show will begin airing On HBO in January.
Next: Mark Frost
