Information about Matthew Fox (actor)

Matthew Fox
Birth name	Matthew Fox
Born	July 14 1966 (1966--) (age 41) Abington, Pennsylvania
Spouse(s)	Margherita Ronchi (1991 - present) 2 children
Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards Best Ensemble - Drama Series 2005 Lost Other Awards Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television 2005 Lost

Matthew Fox (born July 14, 1966) is an actor and former model. His first major role was playing the older brother and patriarch Charlie Salinger on Party of Five in the 1990s, co-starring with both Scott Wolf and Neve Campbell. He gained much greater fame for his current starring role as Dr. Jack Shephard on the hit ABC drama series Lost.

Biography

Early life

Fox was born in Abington, Pennsylvania, and raised on his family's horse ranch in Crowheart, Wyoming. His father, Francis G. Fox, was a geologist and rancher, and his mother, Loretta B. Eagono, was a teacher.^[1] He has an older brother, Francis, Jr., and a younger brother, Bayard. Following his graduation from Wind River High School in nearby Pavillion, Wyoming, Fox undertook a prep year at the private Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, from which he gained admission to Columbia University. At Columbia, he played wide receiver, participating in the game that led to the end of Columbia's notorious 44-game losing streak. He was also a member of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. After graduating in 1989, he began acting with the Atlantic Theater Company. He also attended the School for Film and Television in New York City.

Fox sought a career on Wall Street before turning a job offer down.^[2] He studied economics at Columbia and upon his graduation applied for a job to sell stocks at Prudential-Bache. "I didn't have a suit, so I had to borrow one from a friend. He was 5-10, and I'm 6-2, so the thing didn't fit. And I borrowed his penny loafers," he said. He described the staff as "all these mid-20s, Type A, go-getting wannabe Gordon Gekkos. There was just so much testosterone flying around, in all the wrong directions ... I'll never forget the moment as long as I live: We're saying goodbye, and they were like, 'Well, y'know, you're gonna come here and kick ass, and it's all gonna be great!' and then one of 'em says, 'But he's gonna have to do something about those shoes!' They all had exactly the same pair of Oxford shoes on. In that moment, I [said], 'There's no way I can do this.'" ^[3]

Career

At the age of 25, Fox made his debut on an episode of Wings. That same year, he also starred on a short-lived dramatic series, Freshman Dorm. Still not being a familiar face on the small screen, he continued receiving supporting roles, including the CBS Schoolbreak Special series, If I Die Before I Wake before he made his big screen debut in My Boyfriend's Back (1993).

In 1994, Fox was cast in a co-starring role as the eldest of the five siblings who lost both parents in a car accident on the critically-acclaimed 1990s teen drama, Party of Five, as Charlie Salinger, FOX's attempt at repeating the success of such successful serials such as: Beverly Hills 90210 and its spin-off, Melrose Place. In that very first season, Party connected to audiences and teenagers to form the television media. The network needed to deliver the compassion and care to Fox's character, Salinger, a man who was ripped apart with his family and felt the need to take care of his other siblings. During his tenure on Party, both he and co-star Wolf set many hearts aflutter, appearing on many teen magazines and posters. In 1996, People Magazine named Fox as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.

After Fox's Party came to an end after six long seasons, he starred in another TV series Haunted, in 2002, but the show didn't match the popularity of Party of Five, eight years after.

Since September 2004, Fox has been playing the role of the troubled and dedicated surgeon, Dr. Jack Shephard, on Lost. Reportedly, it was his idea to seek a role in the series as he was about to travel to Hawaii with several other cast members. He initially auditioned for the role of James "Sawyer" Ford. However, co-creator J.J. Abrams was so pleased with his reading of the Dr. Shephard character that Fox was cast in the lead role. Reportedly, he was permitted to read the entire top-secret pilot script. As the star of the series, he is also the highest-paid actor on the show. Fox was nominated for a Golden Globe, won the 2005 Satellite Award, and shared the 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, for his role in Lost. He will play Jack Shepherd for three more seasons of lost when the show will end in 2010.

On December 2, he hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guests Tenacious D. In the monologue for that episode, he talked about how he was never chosen to host SNL during his days on Party of Five and named off other popular TV show stars who never hosted SNL, including Seinfeld's Michael Richards (played by Bill Hader). The following week, he appeared in a digital short that was cut from his episode.^[4]

In 2006, Fox co-starred with Matthew McConaughey in the sports drama, We Are Marshall. He is also set to star in the 2008 thriller, Vantage Point and also played a bit part in the action film Smokin' Aces.

He has also been announced as being cast as Racer X, the rival of the title character in Speed Racer.^[1]

Personal life

Fox grew up in the town Crowheart, Wyoming, where his father, Francis, raised longhorn cattle and horses and grew barley for Coors beer. Francis Fox had previously worked for Getty Oil in Philadelphia, and had given up his job as a consulting geologist to work on his own ranch in the middle of Wind River Indian Reservation.

Fox described his father as a tough man who brought up his three sons (of which Matthew was the middle) with firm and distinct sense of discipline. An enthusiastic outdoorsman, Francis Fox demanded that his sons practice their dry casting in front of the house for days and days at a time before he would allow them to go fishing in an actual river. According to Fox, his father hated TV, and the family did not own one until he was 15.

In their ranch in Wyoming, Fox led somewhat of a wild life, consuming his first alcoholic beverage at the age 12, taking up chewing tobacco a year or two later, and losing his virginity during this same time period. Fox also admitted that he smoked marijuana during this period as well, attributing this early experimentation to the fact that Wyoming was a place that, "...has a pretty intense undercurrent to it. And from a very early age the kids there feel like they're living in an adult world and challenge each other to walk the edge. It really is kind of the last frontier."^[5]

While growing up near an Indian reservation, Fox was a minority among the Arapaho and Shoshone Indians at Wind River High School, where he was called "Whitey" and played varsity basketball. After graduation, Fox attended a post graduate year at Deerfield Academy, a prestigious Massachusetts boarding school. Fox has stated that he continued his wild partying ways there, including wearing cowboy boots and chewing tobacco amidst the blazer and tie scions of the Northeast, and sneaking into graveyards at night to drink beer and eat psychedelic mushrooms. In other more academic and athletic pursuits, Fox played football for the Deerfield team, which earned him an invitation to Columbia University. There he met his future wife, a former Italian runway model named Margherita Ronchi.

In addition to meeting his future wife, while at Columbia University, Fox played in the 16-13 victory over Princeton University in 1988 that broke Columbia's record 44 game losing streak. Regarding what it felt like to finally win, Fox stated,

I had a 40-yard touchdown that was called back. It was a rainy day and the sidelines were muddy, and I got chucked coming off the line and apparently went out-of-bounds. I thought I scored, but it was called back. But more than anything, I remember the immense relief and euphoria that win brought. We had gotten the crap knocked out of us for a long time. Every week we lost, we were news. Then the goal posts came down, and the campus partied for two days. It was a great day.^[6]

While attending Columbia, a friend told Fox he ought to try modeling. Describing his experience as a male model, Fox said,

During my crossover period, when I started studying acting and I was doing some of this modeling stuff, chewing tobacco was so totally outrageously not acceptable that I started smoking cigarettes. I kind of did this redneck-to-cosmopolitan changeover on my nicotine delivery system, and I've been doing that for over 15 years now. I have these two magnificently gorgeous and perfect children, and I hide it from them. It's really terrible.^[7]

Shortly after graduating from Columbia and turning down a job on Wall Street, Fox moved to Hollywood.

In 1991, Fox married Margherita Ronchi, and had two children with her: Kyle (1998) (pronounced "Kyleigh") and Byron (2001). Fox is a football fan and loves the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team. Lost costar Madison lives with him and his family. Every Sunday evening, Fox throws a viewing party and once gave his guests gifts of pictures he took during filming of the pilot episode of the show. He and his wife are expecting their third child.^[8]

Regarding his use of alcohol, Fox said,

I really enjoy social boozing, and what I enjoy about it is when people I know and care about say and do things they normally wouldn't say and do. To make that happen, I'll instigate anything. I'm absolutely an instigator. And I definitely know a lot of people who have woken up the next day and gone, 'I can't believe that happened. And it's Fox's fault.' Well, it's probably the most honest you've been in a while, man.^[9].

He also smokes. His smoking has become a topic of conversation in a number of on-line chatrooms and many people are unsure whether he smokes or not. Numerous pictures have displayed Matthew smoking cigarettes.

Regarding his sex symbol status and how that might affect his marriage, Fox stated,

The reality of the situation is you understand why that girl at the bar is coming at you that way and not somebody else. She has this built-up romanticized image of who I am and what it'd mean to her if she could sleep with me. That sort of takes the fun out of it. It has nothing to do with me.

Regarding his relationship with his wife and the longevity of their marriage, Fox said that his wife understood that there existed within him forces that were "brutal", "base", and "violent". He also stated, "Margherita knows it exists within me...And she's very attracted to it." Fox indicated that both he and his wife had a "hot" temper, and that they did their share of yelling and screaming. "Our fights are very intense, and we lay it all out." According to Fox, this type of open communication was essential to the success of their 15 year-old marriage.

Awards

Year	Award-giving Body	Award	Result
2006	Saturn Awards	Best Lead Actor in a Television Series (Lost)	Won
2006	Golden Globe Awards	(Lost)	Nominated
2007	Saturn Awards	Best Lead Actor in a Television Series (Lost)	Nominated

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1993	My Boyfriend's Back	Buck Van Patten	Feature film debut
2006	We Are Marshall	Red Dawson
2007	Smokin' Aces	Super Security Bill	Cameo
2008	Vantage Point	Kent Taylor	Post-production
	Speed Racer	Racer X	Filming in Germany

Television

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1992	Wings	Ty Warner	Guest
	Freshman Dorm	Danny Foley	TV series debut as a series regular
1994	Party of Five	Charlie Salinger	Series regular (1994-2000)
1999	Behind the Mask	James Jones	CBS movie
2002	Haunted	Frank Taylor	Series regular (2002)
2004	Lost	Dr. Jack Shephard	Series regular (2004-present)
2006	Saturday Night Live		Host, digital short

Footnotes

External links

• Matthew Fox at the Internet Movie Database