Biography of Kurt Russell

Kurt Vogel Russell is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters . In the late 1960s, he signed a ten-year contract with The Walt Disney Company. Where according to Robert Osborne, he became the studio's top star of the 1970s.

Russell was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his performance in Silkwood. In the 1980s, he starred in several films directed by John Carpenter, including anti-hero roles such as army hero-turned-robber Snake Plissken in the futuristic action film Escape from New York, and its sequel Escape from L.A., helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in the horror film The Thing, and truck driver Jack Burton in the kung-fu comedy action film Big Trouble in Little China. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the television film Elvis, also directed by Carpenter.

Russell starred in other films, including Overboard, Tango & Cash, Backdraft Tombstone, Stargate, Miracle, Sky High, Death Proof, The Hateful Eight, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He also appeared in The Fast and the Furious franchise, having starred in Furious 7, and The Fate of the Furious.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Russell is the son of actor Bing Russell and dancer Louise Julia Russell. He has three sisters, Jill, Jamie and Jody. Russell played little league baseball throughout his grade school years and also on his high school baseball teams. He graduated from Thousand Oaks High School in California in 1969. His father, Bing, played professional baseball. His sister, Jill, is the mother of baseball player Matt Franco. From 1969 to 1975, Russell served in the California Air National Guard, and belonged to the 146th Tactical Airlift Wing, then based in Van Nuys.

Russell made his film debut with an uncredited part in Elvis Presley's It Happened at the World's Fair. On April 24, 1963, Russell guest starred in the ABC series Our Man Higgins, starring Stanley Holloway as an English butler in an American family.

Later, he played the title role in the ABC western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. The show was based on Robert Lewis Taylor's eponymous novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1959.

In 1964, Russell guest-starred in "Nemesis", an episode of the ABC series The Fugitive in which, as the son of police Lt. Phillip Gerard, he is unintentionally kidnapped by his father's quarry, Doctor Richard Kimble. In NBC's The Virginian, he played the mistaken orphan whose father was an outlaw played by Rory Calhoun who was still alive and recently released from prison looking for his son.

Russell played a similar role as a kid named Packy Kerlin in the 1964 episode "Blue Heaven" for the western series Gunsmoke.In the storyline, he teams up with a wanted man, play by Tim O'Connor who helps Packy reunite with his mother while avoiding bounty hunters from Texas. In another story line, he works for an outlaw gang, but the Rangers take him under their wing and the boy proves helpful when gunslingers try to occupy Laredo, Texas. At age 13, Russell played the role of Jungle Boy on an episode of CBS's Gilligan's Island, which aired on February 6, 1965.