Born Oscar Levert Bridges III, and delivered by candlelight because of a power outage on December 9 in 1941, the first of Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges’ four children was immediately nicknamed “Beau” after Olivia de Havilland’s baby in Gone With the Wind.

Born to a Hollywood family with a Hollywood name, it was only natural that young Beau would become an actor at early age. He made his acting debut in Lewis Milestone’s No Minor Vices with Dana Andrews, Lilli Palmer and Louis Jourdan when he was just six years old. In featured roles as a child, he appeared in two late forties classics, Abraham Polonksi’s Force of Evil with John Garfield and Marie Windsor, and Milestone’s The Red Pony with Robert Mitchum and Myrna Loy.

Much on TV in the 1950s and 60s, including guest star duty on his dad’s popular Sea Hunt series, he had his breakout adult role as a young soldier on leave in 1967’s The Incident, directed by Larry Peerce. The following year he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his supporting performance in For Love of Ivy, directed by Daniel Mann, with Sidney Poitier and Abby Lincoln. He had his first starring role the year after that as a thinly disguised Ben Hecht in Norman Jewison’s Gaily, Gaily, supported by Brian Keith and Melina Mercouri.

Among his many starring roles in the 1970s were those in Hal Ashby’s The Landlord with Lee Grant, Pearl Bailey and Diana Sands; Sidney Lumet’s Child’s Play with James Mason and Robert Preston; Jonathan Kaplan’s Heart Like a Wheel opposite Bonnie Bedelia; and Martin Ritt’s Norma Rae opposite Sally Field.

He alternated his big screen work with his continuing TV work in the 1970s and 80s, closing out the 80s with one of his best big screen performances in Steve Kloves’ The Fabulous Baker Boys with his brother Jeff and Michelle Pfeiffer. The role brought him the Best Supporting Actor award from the National Society of Film Critics, but, alas, no Oscar nomination. Unlike little brother Jeff, who has been nominated five times and won last year for Crazy Heart, Beau has never been nominated for an Oscar. He would fare much better with the TV Academy.

Almost exclusively on TV since 1992, the actor’s TV work has ranged from such real life characters as James Brady, Richard Nixon and P.T. Barnum to a homeless man in Hidden in America. A true chameleon, his roles have run the gamut from leads in such memorable made-for-TV films as The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom and We Were the Mulvaneys to guest appearances on such popular TV series as Desperate Housewives and The Closer. Since devoting his time almost exclusively to television, he has been nominated for Emmys a remarkable thirteen times, and has won three.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE INCIDENT (1967), directed by Larry Peerce

A stark melodrama, The Incident featured the film debuts of Martin Sheen and Tony Musante as vicious thugs who terrorize the passengers of a New York City subway car after having murdered a man.

The car is packed with people who sit quietly by, afraid for their own lives, as the thugs terrorize one passenger after another until Bridges’ soldier with a broken arm stops them and gets a knife in the gut for his efforts.

The passengers are a microcosm of New York types from Robert Fields as the young gay man who is beaten to a pulp; Brock Peters as the black man who is humiliated in front of his wife, Ruby Dee; Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter as an elderly Jewish couple; Mike Kellin and Jan Sterling as a prototypical bickering couple; and Ed McMahon and Diana Van der Vlis as the well-to-do couple who don’t usually ride subways and probably never will again. All the performances are good, but Bridges as the tragic hero, is the standout.

GAILY, GAILY (1969), directed by Norman Jewison

It’s practically forgotten now, but Gaily, Gaily was one of 1969’s big year-end releases, then considered to be one of the year’s major Oscar contenders. It was, in fact, nominated for three: for Best Art Direction, Costume Design and Sound.

Bridges, in his first starring role, played a country bumpkin who comes to Chicago to make his mark in 1910. He is so naïve that he rents a room in a bordello, thinking it’s a boarding house. The madam, played by Melina Mercouri, takes a shine to him and gets him a job as a reporter, where he’s mentored by gruff, alcoholic Brian Keith.

Bridges, Keith and Mercouri get into one improbable situation after another, made palatable by the fact that it is based on the true life adventures of Oscar winning writer Ben Hecht (The Front Page, Viva Villa!), re-named Ben Harvey in the film. The character’s age is never mentioned, but the real-life Hecht was only 16 in 1910. George Kennedy and Hume Cronyn co-star.

THE LANDLORD (1970), directed by Hal Ashby

No one could play callow better than Bridges in the late sixties and early seventies, and here he is at his callow best as a spoiled rich kid who buys a run-down tenement with the idea of evicting the tenants and turning the house into a posh bachelor pad for himself. Instead he forms friendships with the tenants and even falls in love with one of them.

Bridges is excellent, but the film it is hardly a one-man show. There are superlative supporting turns form Pearl Bailey, Diana Sands, Louis Gossett, Jr. and particularly Lee Grant who was Oscar nominated for her hilarious portrayal of Bridges’ overbearing mother. Grant’s showdown with Bailey is the film’s comic highlight, Bridges’ tender romance with Sands the dramatic highlight.

CHILD’S PLAY (1972), directed by Sidney Lumet

Not to be confused with the gorier 1980s horror film of the same name, this psychological horror film is based on an award-winning Broadway play which starred Frtiz Weaver and Pat Hingle as the forces of good and evil at a private boys’ school fighting for the soul of an impressionable new teacher, played by Ken Howard. Weaver and Howard won Tonys for their performances. James Mason, Robert Preston and Bridges starred in the film version, for which Mason was runner-up to Laurence Olivier in Sleuth at the New York Film Critics’ awards.

The film suffers a bit by being constrained to its limited settings, easily betraying its theatrical origins, but nonetheless provides strong roles for all three leads. Bridges more than holds his own against the two acting powerhouses he’s paired with.

THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS (1989), directed by Steve Kloves

Everybody remembers Michelle Pfeiffer slinking across that piano and singing “Makin’ Whoopee” as Jeff and Beau Bridges play the song on their twin pianos.

The only film in which the two brothers appeared together, Beau is the older, less talented, but more stable one, who doesn’t want to change a thing in their fifteen-year-old act. The film never explains why Jeff’s character is so sullen, but Beau’s character is easy to understand, and Pfeiffer, in her Oscar-nominated role, is the cat’s meow.

BEAU BRIDGES’ EMMY NOMINATIONS

• Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1992) – Lead Actor Miniseries or Special
• The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleading-Murdering Mom (1993) – Supporting Actor Miniseries or Special
• The Outer Limits (Episode: Sandkings) (1995) – Guest Actor Drama Series
• 5 American Kids – 5 American Handguns (1995) – Information Special (as narrator)
• Kissinger and Nixon (1996) – Lead Actor Miniseries or Special
• Hidden in America (1997) – Lead Actor Miniseries or Special
• The Second Civil War (1997) – Supporting Actor Miniseries or Special
• Inherit the Wind (1999) – Supporting Actor Miniseries or Movie
• P.T. Barnum (2000) – Lead Actor Miniseries or Movie
• We Were the Mulvaneys (2002) – Lead Actor Miniseries or Movie
• My Name Is Earl (2007) – Guest Actor Comedy Series
• Desperate Housewives (2009) – Guest Actor Comedy Series
• The Closer (2010) – Guest Actor Drama Series