Biography
In one of his interviews, Kevin Spacey said that he is not interested in heroes who do not have destiny, character, or what is called action. He could not even imagine what kind of drama his own life would throw up. The Oscar and Golden Globe winner, who has gained the reputation of the most secretive artist in Hollywood, has come out. In another time, the public might have admired such courage, but Spacey's moment of revelation coincided with a growing fight against harassment and a wave of accusations of harassment against himself.
Inspiring Change
Perhaps the most (or only) positive outcome of the Kevin Spacey scandal is that his indecency led to some changes, especially in the companies he worked with. Netflix, for example, explored Spacey's behavior with the cast and crew of House of Cards. The company quickly fixed Spacey's problem, protecting others from future problems.
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Childhood and youth
Kevin Spacey Fowler was born in South Orange, New Jersey. Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, the actor's father, worked odd jobs as a technical documentation compiler. The family was supported by mother Kathleen Ann Knutson, who worked as a secretary and managed to raise three children (Kevin has a brother, Randall, and a sister, Julia).
When it was time to go to school, Spacey was enrolled in an educational institution in the city of San Fernando. But due to behavior problems, the parents transferred their son to the Northridge Military Academy for Boys, which was located in Los Angeles. The strict education system here had no impact on the expressive teenager, and a year later the future actor was expelled.
Young Kevin Spacey.
The image was taken in 1980. Posted by Eugene Gwasileus on Thursday, May 14, 2020
Kevin Spacey in his youth
The young man returned to his previous place, where he discovered the world of theatrical art, began to participate in all school productions and realized that he did not want to do anything else except acting. After starring in Arthur Miller's All My Sons, Chatsworth School officials invited Kevin to a specialized drama class.
After school, Fowler entered Valley B College in Los Angeles, from where he immediately transferred to New York, to the Juilliard School. In this institution, he played in the plays “The Sound of Music” and “An Ideal Husband.” At the same time, the pseudonym Spacey appeared - her grandmother’s maiden name. After studying for 2 years, the young man dropped out to focus on professional performances in the theater.
Theater
In 1981, Kevin signed a contract with a theatrical agency and began performing on Broadway. His portfolio includes productions of William Shakespeare's play Henry VI and Moliere's comedy The Misanthrope. In Chekhov's "The Seagull" the actor played the role of Treplev, and in Henrik Ibsen's drama "Ghosts" he played Oswald.
Having played alongside famous actors Jack Lemmon and Peter Gallagher in the production of Long Day's Journey into Night, Spacey received an invitation to try his hand at acting. But he did not leave the theater and in 1991 he received the highest theater award, the Tony, for his participation in the play Lost in Yonkers.
For 12 years, Kevin directed London's oldest theater, the Old Vic. On this stage, he brilliantly portrayed the main characters of William Shakespeare's plays Richard II and Richard III.
“In cinema there are displaced ideas... There is no rhythm. There is no ritual. Theater is another matter. The people you meet on stage every night become members of your family.”
Movies
The actor made his debut on television in a cameo role in the TV series Crime Stories, and then starred alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in the melodrama Jealousy.
In the drama “The Americans” (“Glengarry Glen Ross”) Kevin’s partners were Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin and Ed Harris. The film, with a budget of $12.5 million, was shot in 39 days from a script whose author won a Pulitzer Prize for it. The actors agreed to work for very modest fees. For example, Baldwin was paid $250 thousand instead of the traditional $2-3 million.
Spacey’s first recognition came in 1995 after the release of the thriller “Seven,” in which the actor, replacing Val Kilmer, played the role of serial killer John Doe. For this image, he received awards from the MTV Movie Awards, the US National Board of Film Critics and the New York Society of Film Critics.
Happy birthday Kevin Spacey!
Posted by American Beauty on Friday, July 26, 2013
Kevin Spacey in the film “Seven”
Kevin starred in the neo-noir detective film “The Usual Suspects” with Benicio Del Toro and another member of the Baldwin family, Stephen. Another minor role as a villain brought him his first Oscar statuette in the Best Supporting Actor category and a Golden Globe nomination. The American Film Institute included the film among the ten most notable in its genre.
In 1999, the psychological drama American Beauty was released, which was a resounding success. In the project, Spacey appeared before the audience for the first time in the leading role. The film won fifty awards from various professional societies and an Oscar in five out of eight nominations. The prize in the category “Best Actor” went to Kevin.
Later, the comedy “Austin Powers: Goldmember” appeared in the performer’s filmography, in which Ozzy Osbourne’s family played along with Kevin. He received another nomination for the Golden Globe and BAFTA for his role as a loser in the melodrama Shipping News.
Spacey’s character, mathematics professor Mickey Ross, like most of the characters from the film “Twenty-One,” had real prototypes. The film is based on the story of MIT students who managed to defraud a gambling establishment, described by Ben Mezrich in the novel “Casino Strike.”
Kevin Spacey in the movie "Envelope"
Spacey also taught off the set - he taught acting to everyone. The lessons were broadcast by the paid video service MasterClass. Posts about how to overcome casting, avoid predictability and create character were deleted after the actor became involved in a scandalous showdown.
An interesting project for Kevin was the drama about the abolition of the death penalty in Texas, “The Life of David Gale,” where he portrayed an activist and leader of a local movement with a high goal. The film itself failed at the box office, but the main soundtrack to the film, called The Life of David Gale, became incredibly popular and was used in films more than once.
Spacey has two directorial works to his credit. In 1997, he presented the film “Albino Alligator”, calling Matt Dillon to play the leading role in this thriller. In 2004, the artist released the biographical project “By the Sea,” in which he himself played the main character, singer Bobby Darin. Interestingly, Kevin performed all the musical material in the film himself.
Film critics also noted the Russian-American short film “Envelope,” which tells about an unusual incident in the life of the famous writer Yevgeny Petrov. Kevin Spacey played the role of the famous co-author of “12 Chairs” and “The Golden Calf”.
Kevin Spacey in the Call of Duty trailer
The central character of the crime comedy “Casino Jack” is also a real person, bribe-taking businessman Jack Abramoff, who served 6 years in prison for fraud. When starting filming, the actor visited Jack in prison, talked with the team with whom he worked in parliament, as well as with people who hated him.
With similar scrupulousness, Spacey approached the role of a trader in “Risk Margin.” The film's script (which, by the way, won an Oscar) is based on the story of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., the largest financial conglomerate founded in the mid-19th century, whose bankruptcy led to the global crisis of 2008. The actor took advantage of the fact that the film was filmed in Manhattan and met with employees of banks located there.
The science fiction film “Planet Ka-Pax” did not pay off at the box office, but brought the actor playing the role of a patient in a psychiatric clinic a nomination for an award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.
The world-famous political series “House of Cards” became a large-scale work for Kevin. Spacey and Robin Wright brilliantly played the Underwood couple, who will stop at nothing to achieve the goal of total power. Fans call the film the most successful in the actor’s creative biography.
'House of Cards' crew members claim Kevin Spacey routinely sexually harassed people on set
Posted by Sexual Predators in Hollywood, Sports & Politics on Saturday, November 11, 2017
Kevin Spacey in the series “House of Cards”
At the same time, the comedy “Nine Lives” about the reincarnation of a person in the body of a cat, released in 2021, according to some fans, became the worst project in Spacey’s career. This may have been helped by the fact that almost 70% of the film was created on the computer.
Shortly before the career-ending scandal, Kevin starred in the biopic about Jerome David Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye. He got the role of a teacher who revealed the writing talent of his student, the author of the bestseller “The Catcher in the Rye.”
In 2021, the premiere of two films with the actor’s participation took place: the action comedy film Baby Driver and the 5th season of the series House of Cards. The director of the first film, who began filming Michael Douglas' Ant-Man, planned to involve him in the new film, but was refused. Then Edgar Wright arrived at the site of the second film and enlisted Kevin’s support. Spacey's partners included the increasingly popular Ansel Elgort, Jamie Foxx and Eiza Gonzalez. The creators of “Baby” brought a ninefold profit.
The image of billionaire Jean Paul Getty could bring Kevin another Oscar or a British Film Academy Award. But Ridley Scott mercilessly cut out footage of the actor from the drama “All the Money in the World.” The director, although he admitted that Spacey played an inimitable, fantastic performance, was afraid for the reputation of the film. A war like the one that broke out around Harvey Weinstein had by then also affected Kevin.
Film career
Before his leap to popularity, Kevin starred in an episode of the acclaimed TV series “Crime Story” in 1986 (the role of a pickpocket), then his filmography was again replenished with a “thief” role thanks to the film “Jealousy,” where the incomparable Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson also played. At the beginning of his career, he could be seen in the TV series “L.A. Law,” “The Equalizer,” “Egghead,” and “The Murder of Mary Phagan.”
Kevin Spacey debuted in 1986
Unfortunately, the series “Umnik” (in another translation “Know-It-All”) is not very familiar to Russian viewers. However, in the States, this crime drama at one time broke records for popularity. Kevin Spacey played the highly charismatic anti-hero, arms dealer Mel Profitt, who appeared in nine episodes.
Kevin Spacey in the series "Egghead"
In 1988, the drama “Working Woman” starring Melanie Griffith was released. Spacey's character, the unpleasant salesman Bob Speck, was minor, like the characters of Joanna Cusack and Alec Baldwin, but viewers remembered it.
Still from the film “Business Woman”
After a number of successful films (“See Nothing, Hear Nothing,” “Daddy,” “Henry and June” with Uma Thurman, “Glengarry Glen Ross” with Al Pacino), Kevin Spacey finally got the role that brought him his first Oscar. . The award was brought to him by Brian Stringer's detective story "The Usual Suspects" (1995) and its hero, a cripple and petty swindler named Chatterbox. The film was structured in such a way that it was difficult to single out a specific main character, but viewers agreed that Spacey became the cement that held this complicated story together with an unexpectedly expected ending. "Suspicious persons." Identification scene In the same year, David Fincher's detective thriller "Seven" starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman was released. Once again, Spacey appeared in the role of an anti-hero - serial killer John Doe, who imagines himself to be the scourge of God. He consistently kills people he believes are guilty of one of the seven deadly sins, and each murder is carefully planned and carried out with sadistic pleasure.
Still from the film "Seven"
After two such gloomy (which does not detract from their genius) roles, filming followed in the films “A Time to Kill” (1996) and “Los Angeles Confidential” (1997). In 1998, Spacey starred with Samuel L. Jackson in the thriller “The Negotiator” and received a record fee for himself of $4.5 million. His hero is Lieutenant Sabian, the protagonist’s negotiator-opponent. By that time, the presence of Kevin Spacey in the film already promised big box office receipts and good reviews from critics.
"The Negotiator": Kevin Spacey as Chris Sabian
At the turn of the millennium, Spacey played perhaps his best role, which ensured his place in the history of world cinema. “American Beauty” (1999) by Sam Mendes collected 5 Oscars out of 8 nominations, including the prize for best film of the year, best director and best actor for Lester, an advertising executive in his fifties, suffering from a midlife crisis.
Kevin Spacey in the movie "American Beauty"
His high school daughter (Tory Burch) hates him, his relationship with his wife (Annette Benning) has long since exhausted itself, and a conservative homophobe has settled in the house across the street, whose son peeks through the windows with a video camera. The turning point in Lester's life was a basketball on which he sees his daughter's friend Angela (Mena Suvari) dancing - he falls in love with a spectacular high school student and begins to dream about sex with her. In his attempts to say goodbye to his old boring life, he learns a lot of new things about himself. "American Beauty" Scene in fast food In 2000, the life-affirming film “Pay Another” was released - about a chain of good deeds started by a schoolboy. After the premiere, Kevin Spacey, who had previously hardly talked to journalists about his personal life, said that he decided to turn the ideas of the film into reality. He founded the Kevin Spacey Foundation, which, together with his production studio Trigger Street Productions, searched for young and talented actors and directors and awarded them grants to implement their plans.
Kevin Spacey's awards include two Oscars.
In 2001, the actor tried his hand at the unusual genre of science fiction, playing the alien Prot from the planet Ka-Pax in the film of the same name. His passionate story about his home made psychiatrist Powell (Jeff Bridges) question his competence.
“And now, with your permission, I need to catch a ray of light.”
Each of Spacey’s roles is so natural that the audience believed even the trembling of her lips and the flutter of her eyelashes. In the film “The Life of David Gale” (2003), there was no viewer who did not believe its hero, an opponent of the death penalty, who did not spare his life for the sake of his convictions. "The Life of David Gale". Kevin Spacey monologue
Social activity
The actor used his favorite image in public events. In 2016, world politicians, economists and journalists gathered in Kyiv for the 13th forum “Yalta Economic Strategy” (YES). Spacey also attended the event as a special guest. During his speech, he said that if he became the president of the most powerful state in the world, he would try to overcome political corruption.
“Even in the United States, money is wasted in the government, and this is so shocking, because we could feed the world with this money,” Spacey said from the forum podium.
Answering questions from journalists regarding radical sentiments in Europe, the American emphasized that it is much better to cooperate with each other rather than fight.
Personal life
Spacey carefully hid his personal life, never parted with his bachelor status, did not talk about his relationship, and appeared at parties accompanied by his mother. The artist believed that the less the public knows about him, the easier it is to convince them that he is exactly the hero on the screen. This allows the viewer to enter the film and believe what is happening.
“No one has the right to force me to tell about myself what I don’t consider necessary.”
According to rumors, in his youth the actor dated colleague April Winchell and screenwriter Diane Dreyer. The affair with the latter lasted for 9 years, but during this time the paparazzi never caught the couple leaving the same house, on a walk or in a restaurant. And if so, is it worth talking about the presence of true feelings? Of course, rumors began to spread that Spacey was gay. Publications in the press only fueled suspicions.
These two boys.
Posted by Evan Lowenstein on Monday, August 25, 2014
Kevin Spacey and Evan Lowenstein
Photos of Kevin sunbathing in the park in the company of a young man appeared on the pages of magazines. At the same time, the companion hugged the actor’s shoulders. A bartender told how Spacey showed him his genitals. Hints of his homosexuality were even found in cartoons; openly gay people called on the man to stop being a hypocrite.
Representatives of the British publication The Daily Mirror reported that the name of the Hollywood star was included in the list of famous homosexuals, which is used as part of the prevention of homophobia among high school students. Soon, the program's directors apologized to Spacey, calling the incident a mistake.
In 2021, Kevin publicly admitted his sexual orientation. Such news does not surprise anyone now, but the situation with the actor has taken on a different color. Shortly before this, he found himself at the epicenter of a gay scandal, as a result of which he became an outcast. The LGBT community accused Spacey of selfishly using his position in an attempt to divert attention from the essence of the story that happened specifically to him. And then we were talking about harassment of minors.
Kevin loves sports. He is a fan of tennis, American and European football, basketball and baseball. The fact that the actor prefers not to go on the field, but to cheer for his favorite athletes in the stands, does not affect his own physical characteristics. Spacey, although not an athlete, is a fairly slender man (height 178 cm, weight 75 kg).
Misconception
The lack of vivid love affairs has more than once been the reason why the artist was classified as a member of a sexual minority. In 2006, the famous English newspaper The Daily Mirror published information on its pages that Kevin Spacey is gay. The source of this information was a list of famous homosexuals, which is used as part of the anti-homophobia program. However, the publication was immediately followed by an apology from the project manager with assurances that the actor’s name was mistakenly included in the list.
Sex scandal
In October 2017, actor Anthony Rapp accused a senior colleague of harassment. According to the Star Trek star, a drunken Kevin tried to have an intimate relationship with him, then a 14-year-old teenager, but was rebuffed. In response, Spacey published a post on his Twitter and Instagram accounts saying that he did not remember what happened, and if it happened, he asked for forgiveness.
The sex scandal continued. In addition to Rapp, 14 other people were charged with the artist, including colleagues from the House of Cards project, as well as the former son-in-law of the King of Norway. California prosecutors said they would not pursue criminal charges for crimes that were more than a quarter of a century old. But in the UK, where 6 charges were brought against Spacey, investigations began.
In August 2021, the film “Billionaires Club” was released, in which Kevin played one of the roles. The filming took place in 2016, even before the unpleasant events in the artist’s life; it was released only 2 years later. Despite the fact that the leading actors included such stars as Jeremy Irvine, Taron Egerton and Emma Roberts, the drama turned out to be the worst picture of the year at the box office. The first weekend brought its creators just over $600.
L'attore Anthony Rapp porta in tribunale Kevin Spacey https://twitter.com/TelefilmSpoiler/status/1303795019573350400 #AnthonyRapp #KevinSpacey
Posted by HOUSE OF TELEFILM — La casa delle Serie Tv e degli Spoiler on Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Kevin Spacey and Anthony Rapp
A television presenter from Massachusetts also sued the artist. In 2016, Kevin encouraged her son, who was 18 at the time, to be intimate. The trial began in 2021. Despite the fact that Spacey asked for permission not to attend the hearing, the judge ordered the accused to appear at the hearing.
The actor himself denied his guilt. The request for a printout of the victim's calls from that period, which could shed light on Kevin's innocence, was granted. Spacey was allowed not to attend the rehearing.
The disgrace that Spacey fell into grew like a snowball. He was refused cooperation by his press secretary Stacy Wolf, the Creative Artists Agency and the Dutch bank ING. Netflix has pulled the plug on Gore. The total loss of the companies with which Kevin collaborated was estimated at $30 million. And this does not include how much he himself lost.
There were also those who, in the sea of negativity, spoke words of support to the artist. These are Robin Wright, with whom he starred in House of Cards, British actress Judi Dench, Christopher Plummer, who replaced Spacey in Ridley Scott's film. Kate Mara noted that she did not expect such a fuss about Kevin and felt devastated. His manager Evan Lowenstein continued to collaborate with the artist.
Kevin Spacey - "Let Me Be Frank"
Bryan Cranston believed that the actor deserved a second chance, but he should undergo treatment. Representatives of the celebrity reported that he went to the same clinic as Weinstein.
Nevertheless, the scandal undermined the actor's authority. The International Television Academy changed its mind about presenting him with the Emmy Founders Award. The creators of “House of Cards” terminated the contract for filming the 6th season and quietly got rid of the artist’s character, declaring him dead off-screen.
After a short break, the actor published a video on his YouTube channel in the “Let Me Be Frank” format, where he spoke on behalf of his character from the series, Frank Underwood. Addressing the public, Kevin stated that despite the hostility, persecution in the press and even his own death (meaning the death of the hero), he felt surprisingly well.
In the summer of 2019, Spacey, who was facing a 5-year prison sentence for seducing the son of a TV presenter, had the charge dropped. Prosecutors were counting on a video stored on the young man’s phone, but the gadget disappeared. The young man's mother subsequently admitted that she deleted the recording. The actor’s lawyers suggested that the destroyed information could testify in favor of the client, and this explained the woman’s action.
Kevin Spacey's Christmas message
On the eve of 2021, Kevin posted a video on social networks in which he advised not to rush into retaliatory actions towards ill-wishers, because “you can kill with kindness.” By a strange coincidence, even before this, incomprehensible and sometimes tragic things began to happen to those who accused Spacey of harassment: sudden death, suicide, one woman died under the wheels of a car, another accuser recanted his words without explanation.
There is even a cruel joke in Hollywood that making claims against Kevin Spacey costs oneself more.
Having settled with one accusation of sexual harassment, Kevin received a new one. Two men - Anthony Rapp, who has already spoken out against Spacey once, and a man who did not want to reveal his identity - sued the actor over an incident that occurred in the 80s. According to the anonymous author, under the guise of an acting lesson, Spacey persuaded him to have intimacy.
Allegations of sexual harassment
Although Spacey had long kept his personal life a secret, he suddenly found it out in the open following the Harvey Weinstein scandal: in an article published in Buzzfeed on October 29, 2017, Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp said that during a party in Spacey's apartment in 1986, a drunken owner carried him to the bed and climbed on top of him. Both were performing in Broadway shows at the time, although Spacey was 26 years old and Rapp was just 14. After the news broke, Spacey took to Twitter to address the claim. Noting that he had no memory of the incident, he stated that he was "beyond horror" to hear what he had done and that he owed Rapp his "most sincere apology" for his actions.
Additionally, Spacey used the moment to make his own statement: “This story prompted me to look at other things about my life,” he wrote. “I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and now I choose to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly, and that starts with examining my own behavior.” A few days later it became known that he was seeking unspecified treatment.
However, Spacey's attempt at damage control did little to stop the backlash. On October 31, Netflix announced that it would cease production on the sixth and final season of House of Cards. On November 2, publicist Stacey Wolfe and Creative Artists Agency severed their professional relationship with Spacey. Shortly after, a former "House of Cards" production assistant said he was sexually assaulted by his star, while other former and current production workers described a "toxic" environment created by the actor's behavior.
The next day, Netflix announced that the company would no longer work with Spacey in any capacity and was therefore shutting down post-production on his new film, Gore. It was later revealed that Netflix lost $39 million in costs related to the cancellation of Spacey-related projects.
His career continued to unravel as more people came forward with allegations in the following days. On November 9, it was announced that director Ridley Scott had cut all of Spacey's scenes from his completed film All the Money in the World, which was scheduled for release on December 22, and was re-shooting those scenes with Christopher Plummer. Around the same time, the London Metropolitan Police Service began investigating two allegations of sexual assault and another of assault against the troubled actor.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has launched an investigation into sexual assault allegations stemming from a 25-year-old incident involving Spacey. In April 2021, the department said it had completed its investigation and referred the case to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office for further review. In August, CNN reported that the department was reviewing another case involving Spacey.
In July, the BBC reported that police were investigating three more allegations of sexual assault against Spacey, bringing the number of claims against him in Britain to six.
In January 2021, Spacey was charged with one felony count of indecent assault and battery in Nantucket, Massachusetts, after he allegedly groped a teenager at a restaurant. The charge was dropped in July after it was revealed that the accuser deleted potentially exculpatory data from his phone and then refused to follow his testimony.
Kevin Spacey now
Now the artist is surrounded by an atmosphere of uncertainty. He continues to communicate with the public, but the negative background of his scandalous reputation is still strong.
The celebrity does not abandon his YouTube channel. In a Christmas message ahead of 2021, he supported people considering suicide. Having listed the feelings and events that prompt a person to commit suicide, he reminded that there is a way out of any situation.
The main news in the artist’s career was his return to cinema. Italian director Franco Nero shared in an interview that he was looking forward to working with the Hollywood star, whom he offered a role in the drama about pedophilia “The Man Who Drew God.”
