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More Elliott Gould Bios & Profiles

 

The most recent Elliott Gould biography is published on the main page.
 


Biography #2 (for Ocean's Twelve)

Elliott Gould is an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated actor who has performed in over seventy feature films in a career spanning over 35 years.

Few screen actors during the 1960s and 1970s personified the changes in the American zeitgeist as did this curly-haired leading man, whose engaging portrayals of wry, cynical, and often confused characters made him a counterculture favorite.

Gould gained a new generation of fans with his portrayal of Ross and Monica's father, Jack Geller in the popular NBC smash Friends. Other recent projects include the CBS series Baby Bob, opposite Adam Arkin and Jolie Fisher, the TV thriller Bad Apple, and New Line Cinema's Academy Award-nominated and critically-acclaimed American History X.

Gould began his career with several apprenticeships in such Broadway productions as Rumple, with Eddie Foy Jr., Gretchen Wyler and Stephen Douglas, Say Darling, directed by Abe Burrows and written by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Julie Styne, and Irma La Douce, directed by Peter Brook and starring Elizabeth Seal in her Tony Award-winning performance. From the success of these projects, Gould leapt into the leading role of Harry Bogen in David Merrick's production of I Can Get It For You Wholesale, with Barbra Streisand, directed by Arthur Laurentes and choreographed by Herb Ross and Nora Kaye.

Upon completion of this project, he then traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to appear in the Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Comden and Green classic On the Town at the Prince of Whales Theatre on London's legendary West End. He followed this with the CBS TV special Once Upon a Mattress, opposite Carol Burnett. He toured with Liza Minnelli in The Fantasticks, directed by Ward Baker, with Shelley Winters in LUV, directed by Ronnie Graham, and appeared in the original Broadway productions of Jules Pfeiffer's Little Murders, produced by Alexander H. Cohen and Drat the Cat, written by Ira Levin and Milton Schafer before embarking on a motion picture career.

The first of his nearly 70 feature films was The Confession (now entitled Quick, Let's Get Married on late-night television), which starred Ginger Rogers. He then played the title role in The Night They Raided Minsky's, produced by Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear and directed by William Freidkin.

Gould received an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Ted in Paul Mazursky's 1969 comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. This success was followed by the role of Trapper John in Robert Altman's classic motion picture M*A*S*H, a role which landed Gould on the cover of Time magazine. He was then voted Outstanding Male Newcomer by the National Association of Theatre Owners after appearing in Getting Straight, with Candice Bergen and Harrison Ford.

The actor was chosen as the first American-born artist to appear in Ingmar Bergman's first English-speaking film, The Touch. He also appeared in Move, Little Murders, (which he produced) and I Love My Wife, in which he co-starred with Brenda Vaccaro.

Gould played the legendary Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman; Busting with Robert Blake; S*P*Y*S in which he was reunited with Donald Sutherland; Who with Trevor Howard, California Split with George Segal; and Harry and Walter Go to New York with James Caan, Diane Keaton and Michael Caine, directed by Mark Rydell. In addition, he appeared as himself for Robert Altman in both Nashville and The Player.

Among Gould's other motion picture credits are Joseph E. Levine's epic production of A Bridge Too Far directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Laurence Olivier, Liv Ullman, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins and Robert Redford; Capricorn One, The Silent Partner, Matilda, Whiffs, I Will, I Will...For Now, Escape to Athena, Falling in Love Again, The Lady Vanishes, with Angela Lansbury and Cybill Shephard, The Muppet Movie and It's Up to You. He played the title role in both Last Flight of Noah's Ark and The Devil and Max Devlin, with Bill Cosby. He also appeared in Playing Mona Lisa opposite Marlo Thomas and Alicia Witt and Picking up the Pieces with Woody Allen and Sharon Stone.

Gould received critical acclaim as Harry Greenberg in Barry Levinson's production of Bugsy, with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. He also appeared with Mark Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips in The Big Hit. He recently received rave reviews for his work on the independent feature film Johns and the French film Michael Kael in Katango.

He has hosted six episodes of Saturday Night Live, the first of which won the show its first Emmy Award, and appeared on the seventh segment with Tom Hanks, Steve Martin and Paul Simon. Gould starred in the CBS comedy series E/R, which helped launch the careers of Jason Alexander, Mary McDonnell and George Clooney. He also starred in the miniseries Rules of Marriage, with Elizabeth Montgomery, Blood Lines, with Mimi Rogers, Stolen, One Husband, with Valerie Harper, Vanishing Act, with Mike Farrell and Margot Kidder and Doggin' Around for the BBC.

Gould has guest-starred on such prominent series as LA Law and Touched By An Angel. He also starred with Michael McKean in Billy Crystal's HBO series Sessions. Additionally, Gould has been featured in episodes of Shelly Duvall's Fairy Tale Theatre, Tall Tales and Legends, Frog, and Frog II for the award-winning Wonder Works series, and in the Children's Television Workshop primetime special with the Electric Company, entitled Out to Lunch.

Bio courtesy Warner Bros. for "Ocean's Twelve" (12-Dec-2004)


Biography #3

Elliott Gould is one of this generation's most accomplished actors. Gould, who can currently be seen in the Fox series Getting Personal, first came to prominence in The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and then in the 1969 groundbreaking comedy, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1970, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role as Trapper John in Robert Altman's film of the novel M.A.S.H.

Altman later cast Gould as private eye Phillip Marlowe in 1973's The Long Goodbye. Gould also appears in cameos in Altman's Nashville and The Player. Among his more than 60 films are memorable roles in Getting Straight, California Split, Harry and Walter Go To New York, The Devil and Max Devlin, and as a dim-witted hood in Bugsy. Most recently, he appeared in The Big Hit, Johns, City of Industry, and the television miniseries of Stephen King's The Shining. For the last couple of years he has appeared on the hit series Friends as the father of Monica and Ross.

A native of Brooklyn, Gould started working in his first Broadway chorus line when he was 18. By 1962, he captured the lead in the musical I Can Get It For You Wholesale. In 1996 he returned to the stage in Deathtrap, which made a national tour to 25 cities.

Bio courtesy New Line Cinema (01-Jan-2000)