Jeff Goldblum

Biography

Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum was born October 22, 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of four children of Shirley (Temeles), a radio broadcaster who also ran an appliances firm, and Harold L. Goldblum, a doctor. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was of Austrian Jewish ancestry. Goldblum began his career on the New York stage after moving to the city at age seventeen. Possessing his own unique style of delivery, Goldblum made an impression on moviegoers with little more than a single line in Woody Allen’s Der Stadtneurotiker (1977), when he fretted about having forgotten his mantra. Goldblum went on to appear in the remake Die Körperfresser kommen (1978) and co-starred with Ben Vereen in the detective series Die Schnüffler (1980) before a high-profile turn in the classic ensemble film Der große Frust (1983). The quirky actor turned up in the suitably quirky film Buckaroo Banzai – Die 8. Dimension (1984), which became a 1980s cult classic, starred in the modern-day film noir Kopfüber in die Nacht (1985), then went on to a breakthrough role in the David Cronenberg remake Die Fliege (1986), which also featured actress Geena Davis, Goldblum’s wife from 1987-1990 and co-star in two additional films: Transylvania 6-5000 (1985) and Julien Temple’s Mein Liebhaber vom andern Stern (1988). Goldblum was the rather unlikely star of some of the biggest blockbusters of the 1990s: Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur adventure Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel Vergessene Welt: Jurassic Park (1997), as well as the alien invasion film Independence Day (1996). These films saw Goldblum playing the type of intellectual characters he has become associated with. More recently, roles have included critically acclaimed turns in Igby (2002) and Wes Anderson’s Die Tiefseetaucher (2004). In 2009, he returned to television to star in his second crime series Criminal Intent – Verbrechen im Visier (2001).