Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey is someone who prefers to keep his personal life out of the limelight. The media often speculates about his private life given the fact that he is not married in spite of being a very successful and attractive man, but the actor does not let these speculations bother him.

In October 2017, following allegations of sexual assault against him, Kevin Spacey came out as gay and disclosed that though he has had romantic encounters with both men and women, he is now a gay.

He was born as Kevin Spacey Fowler on July 26, 1959, in South Orange, New Jersey, U.S. His father Thomas Geoffrey Fowler was a technical writer and data consultant while his mother Kathleen Ann was a secretary. He has one brother and one sister.

He was a troublemaker as a young boy and was often expelled from his school. He first went to the Northridge Military Academy, then to the Canoga Park High School, and finally to Chatsworth High School in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California from where he graduated valedictorian of his class, in 1977.

He became interested in acting while studying at the Chatsworth High School and starred in many of the school’s stage productions.

After high school he stared working as a comedian on the amateur comedy club circuit. He developed his celebrity mimicry skills and impersonated the likes of Johnny Carson, Al Pacino, and Christopher Walken.

He then enrolled in the drama program at Julliard in New York City in 1979 at the advice of a former classmate and studied there till 1981.

Kevin Spacey began his career as a stage actor and his first professional stage appearance was as a spear carrier in a New York Shakespeare Festival performance of ‘Henry VI, part 1’ in 1981.

Over the next few years he grew in prominence as a stage actor and was much appreciated for his acting skills and dialogue delivery. Following his success as a stage actor, he decided to venture into television and films.

He appeared in minor roles in several films during the late 1980s and was finally noticed for his acting talents when he played the role of Eddy Otis in the 1992 movie ‘Consenting Adults’. Around the same time, he also played small roles in television series such as ‘Wiseguy’ (1988) and ‘L.A. Law’ (1992).

He received a big breakthrough when he was offered the role of Roger "Verbal" Kint in the 1995 crime thriller, ‘The Usual Suspects’. He played the role of a con man who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles.

Sam Mendes, the director of the film ‘American Beauty’ (1999) asked Kevin Spacey to play the role of the middle-age office worker Lester Burnham in the movie. Spacey accepted the role and his portrayal of the character garnered him much critical appraise and made him a superstar.

His portrayal of Lester Burnham, an advertising executive and magazine journalist going through a mid-life crisis, in the movie ‘American Beauty’ is undoubtedly one of his finest performances. The movie catapulted him to superstardom and earned him several prestigious awards.