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John Savage
Age: 60
Height: 5' 9 1/2"
Birth Place: Old Bethpage, Long Island, New York, USA
Born: Aug. 25th, 1949
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John Savage's Main TV Roles
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at
IMDB
BIOGRAPHY: This American film actor also multitasks as a producer, composer and production manager. He rose to fame in the 70s, praised for his range and sensitivity. His blonde rugged looks helped viewers connect even more easily to his powerful performances.
Born John Youngs in Old Bethpage, New York, Savage attended the American Academy of Performing Arts. The Long Island boy debuted on Broadway in the chorus of "Fiddler On the Roof". He ended up playing one of the sons, after another actor fell sick. During this production, Managers Stewart Cohen and Rudy Altobelli discovered Savage. Between 1972 and 1975 Savage did a number of films a TV show and spent three years doing theater in Chicago; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest and Dance on a country Grave.
He subsequently moved to Los Angeles to star in Eric with Patricia Neal and Mark Hamill, then was cast by Dir Ulu Grossbard to play Bobby in the original production of David Mamet's "American Buffalo".
Savage first made a major splash with The Deer Hunter, winner of the 1979 Best Picture Oscar. The film's impact on Hollywood and America remains enormous. Director Michael Cimino cast him as Steven, who returns from Vietnam missing his legs.
The following year, this actor enjoyed leads in two more big pictures: the film adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh's Onion Field and Milos Forman's musical Hair (1979). Savage played the corn-fed recruit Claude Hooper Bukowski, who turns on, tunes in and drops out. Critics and film historians celebrated his performance - both then and now. In fact, John Willis' "Screen World" hailed him as one of the 12 promising new actors of 1979 (Vol. 31).
In another major role, Savage appeared as the suicide-survivor in Richard Donner's Inside Moves (1980). Sensitive and moving, this feel-good film delivers a powerful message about overcoming adversity. He was nominated for Best Actor-Foreign for his work in Amateur (1981). He went on to co-star in Maria's Lovers (1984) with Nastassja Kinski, backed by cinema legend Robert Mitchum.
Later films include Oliver Stone's Salvador and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part III (1990) in place of Robert Duvall (who refused to appear due to a salary dispute). During the late 80s, Savage threw his star power behind the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. He continues to work despite his activism, including guest appearances in The X Files (1995), Star Trek Voyager (1999), Dark Angel (2000-1) and various Law & Order episodes.
He first collaborated with Director Spike Lee as the bike-riding gentrifier in "Do the Right Thing" (1989), then shifted to the camera's other side for "Malcolm X" (1992) and "Summer of Sam" (1999). He also had a brief, but powerful, role in Terrence Malick's war epic, The Thin Red Line (1998).
Married twice - first to artist Susan Youngs, later to South African TV star Sandi Schultz - Savage is the father of ceramic artist Lachlan Youngs and actress-singer-songwriter Jennifer Youngs.
TRIVIA:
- Brother of actress 'Gail Youngs' (qv)
- Had a son, 'Lachlan Youngs' (qv), and a daughter, 'Jennifer Youngs' (qv), from his first marriage to 'Susan Youngs' (qv).
- Younger sister, 'Gail Youngs' (qv), was once married to actor 'Robert Duvall' (qv) from 1982-1986.
- Won the Drama Circle Award for his stage portrayal of Billy Bibbitt in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in the early 1970s.
- His present wife actress 'Sandi Schultz' (qv) is from S.Africa.
- Father of 'Jennifer Youngs' (qv).
- Older brother of actor 'Jim Youngs' (qv).
- Was an assistant production manager for certain sequences of 'Spike Lee' (qv)'s film _Malcolm X (1992)_ (qv) that was shot in South Africa where John was living at the time working with 'Nelson Mandela' (qv) on the anti-apartheid movement. John had appeared in Lee's _Do the Right Thing (1989)_ (qv) a few years back, and later would show up in Lee's _Summer of Sam (1999)_ (qv).
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