John Malkovich
Birth name	John Gavin Malkovich
Born	December 9, 1953 (1953-12-09) (age 53) Christopher, Illinois
Years active	1984 - present
Spouse(s)	Glenne Headly (1982-1988) Nicoletta Peyran (1989-)
Awards Emmy Awards Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries/Movie 1986 Death of a Salesman

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, producer and director.

Biography

Early life

Malkovich was born in Benton, Illinois, of Croatian descent on his father's side and of Scottish and German ancestry on his mother's.[1][2][3] He grew up in Benton, Illinois in a large house on South Main St. His father, Daniel Malkovich, was a state conservation director and publisher of Illinois Magazine, a conservation magazine. His mother, Joe Anne, owned the Benton Evening News (a local newspaper in Benton), as well as the Outdoor Illinois.[4][5] Because of his father's work, the Malkovich family is widely acknowledged as one of the founding families of the environmental movement in Illinois. By high school, he had transformed himself physically and was an athlete. He transferred to Illinois State University from a university where he only spent one semester with an interest in ecology, but he soon changed his major to theatre.

Personal life

Malkovich was married to actress Glenne Headly from 1982 to 1988. They divorced and Malkovich briefly dated Michelle Pfeiffer, co-star in Dangerous Liaisons. He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, Nicoletta Peyran, and their two children. He is fluent in French.

Of the many people he has worked with, Malkovich is often associated with Gary Sinise, a fellow Steppenwolf alum. Also, Joan Allen was a fellow drama student at Eastern Illinois University whom Malkovich brought into Steppenwolf. He met actor John Mahoney in a Chicago acting class years later, and advised him to join Steppenwolf.

On April 4, 2005, while speaking at Illinois State University, Malkovich was awarded a diploma in theatre. When attending the university as a student in the 1970s, he failed to take his last remaining graduation requirement, the U.S. Constitution test. This requirement was waived in order to award him the diploma.

Malkovich has worked with Jeremy Irons in two movies; The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and Eragon (2007), though they didn't have scenes together in the second movie.

Political views

Politically, Malkovich has described himself as a libertarian. He is a supporter of the death penalty.[6] When the Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed in 1994, Malkovich organized a champagne party for himself and his friends. Actor William Hootkins, who worked with Malkovich in BBC television's Rocket to the Moon, stated "In fact he's so right-wing you have to wonder if he's kidding."[7]

In the United Kingdom in 2002 at the Cambridge Union Society, when asked whom he would most like to "fight to the death," he replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalist Robert Fisk and British MP George Galloway.[8] Fisk reacted with outrage.[9] Galloway brings it up frequently on his radio show with great amusement. [10][11][12] When interviewed by The Observer, Malkovich elaborated on his comments: "I hate somebody who is supposed to be a Middle Eastern expert who thinks Jesus was born in Jerusalem. I hate what I consider his vile anti-semitism. This being said, I apologize to both Fisk and Galloway; they seem like good men... but if they make such a heinous mistake again, I will not hesitate to murder them brutally by way of the gallows". Malkovich then added: "I'm a [Christopher] Hitchens fan myself. But no one has thinner skins than journalists, in my experience, and I come from a family of them... They can dish it out but they can't take it. But the reason I don't like the topic, why I don't really say anything about a whiner like Fisk, is it gives them more oxygen."[13]

Filmography

Movies

As director

• The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

References

External links

• John Malkovich at the Internet Movie Database
• John Malkovich at the Notable Names Database
• John Malkovich at TV.com
• Fisk:Why does John Malkovich want to kill me?
• Profile: John Malkovich
• Life and taxes
• Finch and Partners (John's Management in the UK)
• John's official clothing design web site
• Photographs of John Malkovich