Information about James Woods

James Woods
James Woods at the 1995 Emmy Awards
Birth name	James Howard Woods
Born	March 18 1947 (1947--) (age 60) Vernal, Utah, U.S.
Died
Spouse(s)	Kathryn Morrison (1980-1983) Sarah Owen (1989-1990)

James Howard Woods (born April 18 1947) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated and three-time Emmy Award-winning American film and television actor.

Biography

Early life

Woods was born in Vernal, Utah to Gail Peyton Woods, an army intelligence officer who died in 1960^[1] following routine surgery, and Martha A. (née Smith), who operated a pre-school after her husband's death^[2] and re-married to Thomas E. Dixon. Woods grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School. Woods was a close childhood friend of Wall Street Journal Personal Technology columnist Walter Mossberg. The two collaborated on a column in their Warwick, RI, school newspaper.^[3] Woods, an army brat, had been accepted to attend the United States Air Force Academy with the intention of becoming a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, several weeks before he was to depart, Woods suffered an accident involving a plate glass window which injured his hand tendons severely enough to result in his acceptance being retracted.

Woods received a score of 1580 on the SAT, which included a perfect score of 800 on the verbal section of the test.^[4] He chose to pursue his undergraduate studies at MIT, where he majored in political science (though he originally planned on a career as a surgeon). While at MIT, Woods pledged to Theta Delta Chi Fraternity, and was one of the first brothers to reside in their new building purchased in 1967. He was also an active member of the student theatre group "Dramashop" where he both acted in and directed a number of plays. However, he dropped out of MIT in 1969 just before his graduation in order to pursue a career in acting. Woods headed to New York City, calling his mother to tell her of his plans.

While his mother wasn't thrilled at the news, she gave him her blessing to pursue a career in acting. At the 2006 CBS UpFront James Woods stated that his mother told him that if he was going to switch careers to acting that he needed to be the best actor he could possibly be. Before this transition to acting, however, he was considered a brilliant student and had been permitted to enroll in a linear algebra course at UCLA while still in high school.^[5]

Career

Woods' career has been noted for the intense characters he has chosen, the earliest of which was his portrayal of a sadistic murderer in 1979's The Onion Field. He was nominated for an Academy Award twice: the first in 1987 for Best Actor in Salvador and again in 1996 for Best Supporting Actor for his acclaimed performance as Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi. He has also garnered critical praise for his voice work for Hades in Disney's Hercules. His personal favorite of all of his roles, however, is as the domineering gangster Max in Sergio Leone's gangster epic Once Upon A Time In America (1984).

He was briefly considered for the role of The Joker by Tim Burton and Sam Hamm for the Batman film in 1989. Hamm recalls that he and Burton thought, "James Woods would be good and wouldn't need any makeup, which would save a couple of hours' work every morning." The role ended up going to Jack Nicholson.^[6] Quentin Tarantino wrote a part in Reservoir Dogs with Woods in mind, but his agent rejected the script without showing it to the actor. When Woods learned of this some time later, he fired the agent. Woods was also considered for the part of Donald Kimball in American Psycho, but he turned it down. The part was given to Willem Dafoe.

Woods appeared as himself in the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer and Apu" and in an episode of Family Guy entitled "Peter's Got Woods". In 2006, Woods starred opposite Cuba Gooding Jr. in the political thriller End Game. Also in 2006, Woods played himself in the premiere episode of Entourage's third season. He also starred in as Mike Toreno and voiced the falcon in Stuart Little 2.

Woods stars in the new CBS legal drama Shark. Woods plays an infamous Los Angeles defense lawyer who, growing disillusioned, becomes a prosecutor. The Shark pilot episode was directed by Spike Lee.

Politics

Woods is a self-described blue-dog Democrat, although he has been a vocal supporter of U.S. President George W. Bush and former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. Woods lobbied hard to play Giuliani in the biopic , and considers the role one of the favorites of his career.^[7]

Personal

When asked, Woods lists Blade Runner as his favorite film (after first jokingly claiming his favorite was Starship Troopers).

Woods plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the American Stroke Association charity. In 2006, James finished in 24th place out of 692 at the L.A. Poker Classic for $40,000. Woods has shared an endorsement for the online poker website Hollywood Poker which is run in conjunction with Ongame Network, and "co hosted" with poker enthusiast Vince Van Patten. He can be found playing regularly at Hollywood Poker, and contributes content to the website.

During the filming of The Boost, Woods became romantically involved with co-star Sean Young. After Woods broke off the relationship, he claimed that he was a victim of assaults by Young.

During a press interview for Kingdom Hearts II, Woods noted that he is an avid video game player.

His brother and fellow actor, Michael Jeffrey Woods, died of cardiac arrest on July 26, 2006. This occurred shortly after the two of them returned after James finished 24th at a World Poker Tour event.

Woods reportedly has an I.Q. of 180 (Stanford-Binet) and is a member of Mensa.^[8]

Connection to 9/11

Following the September 11 attacks, Woods appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The O'Reilly Factor, where he stated that six or seven weeks prior to the attacks, in August 2001, he was on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles on which he noticed four Arab men sitting in the first class section—the only other first-class passengers except himself—behaving in a highly suspicious manner.

Woods stated that the men never spoke to each other except in muted tones, did not eat, drink, or sleep, and mostly sat upright in their seats and stared directly ahead. Woods, fearing that the plane was about to be hijacked, alerted a flight attendant, who confided that she herself also noticed their behavior, and who in turn informed the first officer. No overt action was taken against them. One day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Woods called the FBI and informed investigators about what he had seen the previous month. He was interviewed on September 13.

Woods repeated the anecdote when he appeared again on The Tonight Show on September 11, 2006, adding that Seymour Hersh, when writing about the incident in The New Yorker magazine, informed Woods that the FAA did not investigate the incident at the time because they considered it an act of racial profiling. Woods later learned that two of the four Arab men on his flight had been Hamza al-Ghamdi and Khalid Almihdhar, two of the 19 hijackers involved in the actual attacks weeks later, one of whom was on United Airlines Flight 175, and another of whom was on American Airlines Flight 77. Woods observed that this contradicts the testimony of possible 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, who asserted that members of different cells never had contact with one another. Woods believes that the flight was a test run for the hijackers' impending plot.

In the same episode, Woods provided a potentially chilling addendum, stating that according to one FBI agent who interviewed him, other airplanes were discovered at Boston's Logan Airport with box cutters taped under their seats, a possible indicator that other flights were intended as part of the hijackers' plans that went unused only because they were grounded following the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Filmography

Kojak (Jan. 1974 episode: Death Is Not A Passing Grade) Holocaust (TV mini-series) (1978) The Onion Field (1979) Fast-Walking (1982) Videodrome (1983) Against All Odds (1984) Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Cat's Eye (1985) Joshua Then and Now (1985) Salvador (1986) Best Seller (1987) Cop (1987) True Believer (1989) The Hard Way (1991) Straight Talk (1992) Diggstown (1992) Citizen Cohn (1992) Chaplin (1992) The Specialist (1994) The Simpsons (TV series) (1994) Casino (1995) Nixon (1995) Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) (1996) Contact (1997) Another Day in Paradise (1997) Hercules (voice) (1997) John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

True Crime (1999) Any Given Sunday (1999) The General's Daughter (1999) The Virgin Suicides (1999) Riding in Cars with Boys (2001) (voice of Dr. Philium Benedict) (2001) Scary Movie 2 (2001) (voice) (2001) Race to Space (2002) Kingdom Hearts (video game) (2002) Stuart Little 2 (voice) (2002) John Q (2002) (2003) Northfork (2003) Ark (voice of Jallak) (computer-generated film) (2004) (video game) (2004) Family Guy (voice) (2005) Be Cool (2005) (video game) (2006) Shark (2006) ER (2006) Entourage (2006) End Game (2006) Kingdom Hearts II (video game) (2006) Surf's Up (voice) (2007)

Trivia

On the popular FOX show Family Guy, the high school is named after Woods, as well as a forest.

References

External links

• James Woods at the Internet Movie Database