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Eric Roberts
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Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with King of the Gypsies (1978), earning a Golden Globe nomination for best actor debut. He starred as the protagonist, Paul in the 1980 dramatisation of Willa Cather's 1905 short story, Paul's Case. He earned both a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Runaway Train (1985). Through the 1990s and 2000s he maintained dramatic film and TV-movie roles while appearing in TV series.
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Encyclopedia
Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with King of the Gypsies (1978), earning a Golden Globe nomination for best actor debut. He starred as the protagonist, Paul in the 1980 dramatisation of Willa Cather's 1905 short story, Paul's Case. He earned both a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Runaway Train (1985). Through the 1990s and 2000s he maintained dramatic film and TV-movie roles while appearing in TV series. His television work including three seasons with the sitcom Less Than Perfect. His sisters Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan, and daughter Emma Roberts, are actresses.
Early life
Roberts was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. His Minneapolis, Minnesota-born mother, Betty Lou Motes (née Bredemus), was a one-time church secretary and real estate agent, and his father, Walter Grady Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman. Roberts's parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces and later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia off of Juniper Street in Midtown; the two divorced in 1971. His younger siblings, Julia Roberts (from whom he was once estranged but reconciled since 2004) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. His mother later married Michael Motes and had a daughter, named Nancy Motes, who was born in 1976. Roberts was raised in Atlanta, Georgia and attended Grady High School.
Career
Roberts received Golden Globe nominations for his early starring roles in King of the Gypsies (1978) and Star 80 (1983). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for his role as the escaped convict Buck in the film Runaway Train. In 1987, he won the Theatre World Award for his Broadway debut performance in Burn This.
Roberts's other starring roles included Raggedy Man (1981), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), The Coca-Cola Kid (1985), Nobody's Fool (1986), Best of the Best (1989), By the Sword (1991), Best of the Best 2 (1993), The Immortals (1995), La Cucaracha (1998), and Purgatory (1999), Stiletto Dance (2001). He also had major supporting roles in Final Analysis (1992) and The Specialist (1994). He played the Archangel Michael in The Prophecy II (1997).
In 1996, he appeared in the Doctor Who TV movie in the role of the Master. As of 2008, he is the only American actor to play the role. When SFX listed previous Masters in Doctor Who, the magazine said of Roberts: "Out-acted by a CGI snake in the same production."
His recent projects include A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, DOA: Dead or Alive and Royal Kill. He appeared in the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, as Sal Maroni, an organized crime boss.
Roberts co-starred on the ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect. He appeared in an episode of CSI: Miami as Ken Kramer, a murderer on death row convicted of killing a young couple. Another notable TV appearance was the episode "Victims" of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit where he played Sam Winfield, a former cop turned vigilante community activist. In the same year, he was also guest starred on The L Word as Shane McCutcheon's father, Gabriel. In early January 2007, Roberts starred in the two-part mini-series Pandemic as the mayor of Los Angeles.
Roberts voiced the Superman villain Mongul in the animated series Justice League and reprised his role in Justice League Unlimited in the episode "For the Man Who Has Everything". He performed the voice of Dark Danny in Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom. He appeared in the first season of Heroes as Thompson, an associate of Mr. Bennet. He then reprised the role in the third-season episode Villains.
Roberts appeared in The Killers' music video for their song "Mr. Brightside" as well as in the music videos for Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" and "It's Like That". In 2006, he appeared in the video for Akon's "Smack That", featuring Eminem. In 2007, he appeared in the video for Godhead's "Hey You". He appeared as a panelist on the television game show Hollywood Squares. In February 2009, Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke, who starred with Roberts in The Pope Of Greenwich Village, expressed a wish that Roberts would soon be offered a role which would resurrect his career in the way that The Wrestler rejuvenated Rourke's.
Personal life
Roberts had his daughter Emma Roberts on February 10, 1991 with his then-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham. After that relationship ended, he married Eliza Garrett in 1992. His daughter Emma has joined her father and aunts in the acting business. She had a starring role on the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous and appeared in the films Blow (2001), Aquamarine (2006), and starred as the title character in Nancy Drew (2007) and Wild Child (2008).
In 1981, Roberts was involved in a car crash that left him comatose for three days and with facial trauma, a broken collarbone, and an injured hand. His appearance changed sufficiently as a result that he had to change the type of role he played, taking "heavy" roles rather than the "pretty boy" parts he had played previously. In 1987, Roberts was arrested for resisting arrest and possession of cocaine and marijuana after he tried to assault a New York police officer. He spent 36 hours in jail, pleaded guilty for harassment, and had all other charges dropped. In 1991, Roberts faced accusations of domestic violence from then-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham. In February 1995, Roberts was arrested for shoving his wife, Eliza Garrett, into a wall. He subsequently announced that he was renouncing drug use entirely.
On January 12, 2001, Roberts visited The Howard Stern Radio Show with his wife during a segment called "The Gossip Game" with Mike Walker of the National Enquirer on the telephone and shared a bit of personal information. He confirmed that he and his more famous sister Julia Roberts were estranged for several years. The source of the estrangment had been Eric's past drug abuse, and Julia's siding with his ex-girlfriend over the custody battle over Emma Roberts. In 2004, he told People magazine, that he and Julia reconciled when he went to visit her in the hospital after she gave birth to twins.
In popular culture
An episode of the satiric cartoon series South Park featured Roberts as a star in a re-enactment of America's Most Wanted. He plays the genetically engineered half-man, half-monkey sidekick of the character Mephisto, where he overacts his part. During the re-enactment's taping, a snowstorm forces a group of characters to resort to cannibalism.
He was also name-checked in an episode of Seinfeld; after giving away the ending of the film, Kramer tells George that Roberts' performance as the husband in the film The Other Side of Darkness was "unforgettable".
He was portrayed as a clay figure on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch where he fought alongside his sister, Julia, against Donny and Marie Osmond.
Roberts was parodied in the web cartoon series College University, participating in a martial arts competition for washed-up action stars. He never got to compete, though, as the Transformer Optimus Prime knocked him out and stole his name tag. Although in writing he was dubbed Eric Roberts, throughout the entire episode everybody referred to him as "Julia Roberts' Brother". The cartoon can be viewed at College University Character Bios.
Selected filmography
External links
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