Crispin Glover

Over the years, Crispin Glover has dated actress Fairuza Balk, singer Jessicka, former Penthouse Pet of the Month (September 1999) Alexa Lauren, Russian model Marina Drujko, and television actress Courtney Peldon among others. He lives between his two homes in Los Angeles and Czech Republic.

Born on April 20, 1964, in New York City, New York, Crispin Glover is the only child of actor Bruce Glover and his performer wife Mary Elizabeth Lillian Betty Krachey (née Bloom Koerber). His mother retired right after his birth. The family moved to Los Angeles, California where he grew up in a culturally rich and artistic household. He is of English, Czech, Swedish, and German descent and was named after the famous Saint Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare’s historical play ‘Henry V’.

He studied at Mirman School from first grade through ninth grade, then enrolling at Venice High for the tenth and eleventh and at Beverly Hills High School for the twelfth grade. He received his high school graduation degree in 1982.

Crispin Glover began acting professionally at the age of 13 in situational comedies such as ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Family Ties’. After appearing in his first film ‘The Tutor’, he followed it up with ‘Teachers’ (1984), ‘Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter’ (1984), ‘Back to the Future’ (1985) and the third instalment of the Beaver trilogy, ‘The Orkly Kid’ (1985). In 1986, he starred alongside Keanu Reeves in ‘River’s Edge’, in one of his career-defining roles as Layne.

His next important outing was in the British independent comedy-buddy film ‘Rubin & Ed’ (1991) as Rubin. In the same year, he played Andy Warhol in Oliver Stone’s ‘The Doors’. In the action-comedy ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (2000) and its sequel ‘Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle’ (2003), he portrayed the silent assassin known simply as the ‘Thin Man’.

One of the two films where he was cast as the titular characters, ‘Bartleby’ (2001), was the film adaptation of the short story ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ by Herman Melville. The other, ‘Willard’ (2003), was based on Stephen Gilbert’s horror fiction ‘Ratman's Notebooks’. In 2002, he got the chance to work with Israeli director Menahem Golan in ‘Crime and Punishment’.

Glover debuted as a director with ‘What Is It?’ (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Festival that year. In 2007, he released its sequel ‘It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.’ which was written by and stars Steven C. Stewart. At present, he is making his third film as a director, which he intends to be the vehicle for his father and himself to act together for the first time.

More recently, he worked with ‘Back to the Future’ director Zemeckis after 22 years in the 3D Motion Capture epic fantasy ‘Beowulf’ (2007), portraying the monster Grendel. He then acted in the second and third instalments of ‘Open Season’ as Fify, the toy poodle, and is set to appear in the upcoming films ‘The Brits Are Coming’ and ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’.

Over the course of the last 24 years, Crispin Glover has constructed—rather than written—about 15 to 20 books. His first ever literary work was ‘Billow and the Rock’. Appropriating old books and publications that are now in public domain, he shuffles texts, omits standing passages and includes his own writings and paintings to create something quite different from the original piece. A great example of this is ‘Rat Catching’, for which he used Henry C. Barkley’s ‘Studies in the Art of Rat Catching’ (1896).

He has released four other books through his own publishing company Volcanic Eruptions: ‘Oak-Mot’ (1989), ‘Concrete Inspection’ (1990), ‘What it is and How it is Done’ (1992), and ‘Round My House’ (2016).

In 1989, while he was on a break from acting, Glover composed his debut studio album ‘The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, The Solution Equals Let It Be.’ Released through Restless Records and produced by Barnes & Barnes, it contains readings from ‘Rat Catching’ and ‘Oak-Mot’, original songs including ‘Clowny Clown Clown’ and ‘Getting out of Bed’, and odd renditions of Jules Léotard’s ‘The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’ and Charles Manson’s ‘Never Say “Never” to Always”.