Robert Englund
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| Robert Englund | |
|---|---|
 Robert Englund, March 2005 |
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| Born | Robert Barton Englund June 6, 1949 Glendale, California, U.S. |
| Years active | 1974 – present |
| Spouse(s) | Nancy Booth (1988 – present) |
| Official website | |
Robert Barton Englund (born June 6, 1949) is an American actor, perhaps best known for playing the fictional serial killer, Freddy Krueger, in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master in 1988. Englund is a classically trained actor.[1]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Personal life
Englund was born in Glendale, California, the son of Janis (née McDonald) and C. Kent Englund, an aeronautics engineer who helped develop the Lockheed U-2.[2][3] He has Swedish ancestry.[4] Englund began studying acting at age twelve.[1] He attended California State University Northridge for three years before transferring to Michigan's Oakland University, where he trained at the Meadow Brook Theatre,[5] at the time a branch of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[1] Englund has been married three times and has no children. He currently resides in Laguna Beach, California.
[edit] Career
Since his first film, Buster and Billie, in 1974, Englund has made over 100 appearances on film and television. His early film roles usually typed him as a nerd or a redneck. Before the Nightmare on Elm Street series, his most notable part was that of Willie, the lovably innocent alien in the 1983 miniseries V, the 1984 sequel V: The Final Battle, and V: The Series.
After his huge success as Freddy Krueger, Englund became the first new horror movie star since Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in the 1960s. His association with the genre led him to top-billed roles in The Phantom of the Opera (1989), The Mangler (1995), and 2001 Maniacs (2005). While no longer a headliner, today he is revered by horror fans as an elder statesman of the genre.
He is one of only two actors to play a horror character eight consecutive times, the other being Doug Bradley, who portrayed the Pinhead character eight times. Englund has said that he enjoys the role of Freddy as it gives him a break from always playing the nice guy; indeed, many people who have worked with Englund attest to his congeniality. Makeup artists responsible for the Kruger makeup have commented that Englund was so friendly and talkative that it made the lengthy makeup application slightly more challenging.
Englund's TV appearances include guest spots on the science fiction series Babylon 5 and Sliders, as well as Knight Rider, where he played a phantom haunting a film studio. He provided the voice of magician Felix Faust in Justice League and The Riddler on The Batman. He is to voice the villain The Vulture on the new show The Spectacular Spider-Man. On the TV witch drama Charmed (Episode: "Size Matters"), he played a demon who used the services of a lackey to lure people into a decrepit household (of which he lived in the walls) and shrank them down to action figure size.
Englund made his directorial début with the 1989 horror film 976-EVIL. His second feature, Killer Pad, was released direct-to-DVD in 2008. He is currently in pre-production to direct The Vij, about a young priest who is lead by an evil genie to commit murder and falls in love with an old witch who is not what she seems.
[edit] Filmography
- seven (2006)
- Zombie Strippers (2008)
- Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2008)
- Horror in the wind (2008)
- Black Swarm (2008)
- Red (2008)
- Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
- Hatchet (2007)
- Dance of the Dead, episode of Masters of Horror (2005)
- 2001 Maniacs (2005)
- Il ritorno di Cagliostro (The Return of Cagliostro) (2003)
- Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
- Python(2000)
- Meet The Deedles (1998)
- Urban Legend (1998)
- Strangeland (1998)
- Wishmaster (1997)
- Killer Tongue (1996)
- The Paper Brigade (1996)
- The Mangler (1995)
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
- Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (1993)
- Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
- The Adventures of Ford Fairlane 1990
- The Phantom of the Opera (1989)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
- North and South Book II (1986)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
- Galaxy of Terror (1981)
- Dead & Buried (1981)
- Big Wednesday (1978)
- Eaten Alive (1977)
- Stay Hungry (1976)
- Buster and Billie (1974)
[edit] Education
- Granada Hills High School, Granada Hills, California[citation needed]
- University of California, Los Angeles, California
- Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan
- BA Theatre, California State University, Northridge
- Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, England
[edit] Quotes
- "I saw an entire magazine of Freddy Krueger tattoos. Hey, I'm a classically trained actor who was doing Chekhov, and now there are thousands of people walking around America with my [character's] tattoo on them. I just take it as pop culture."
- "When I was 9, I went to a birthday party. We were supposed to see a cowboy movie, but the programming got screwed up and we saw The Bad Seed instead. Horrifying. For years I was frightened of girls with pigtails."
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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