Timothy Bottoms Biography

Timothy James Bottoms (born August 30, 1951) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for his role as Sonny Crawford in The Last Picture Show where he and his fellow co-stars, Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges, rose to fame; and for his role as James Hart, the first-year law student who battles with Prof. Kingsfield, in the film adaptation The Paper Chase.

Early life

Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the eldest son of Betty (ne Chapman) and James "Bud" Bottoms, who is a sculptor and art teacher. He is the brother of actors Joseph Bottoms (born 1954), Sam Bottoms (1955-2008) and Ben Bottoms (born 1960). In 1967, Bottoms toured Europe as part of the Santa Barbara Madrigal Society.

Sam Bottoms died from brain cancer in 2008. At one point, Sam was the only sibling close to Timothy.

Bottoms married twice. His first marriage to folksinger Alicia Cory in 1975 produced one son Bartholomew, before ending in divorce in 1978. His second marriage to Marcia Moreheart in 1984 produced three children: Bodie, Bridget, and Benton.

Career

Bottoms made his film debut in 1971 as Joe Bonham in Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun. The same year, he appeared alongside his brother Sam in The Last Picture Show. (He portrayed the same character in the 1990 sequel Texasville). In 1973's The Paper Chase, he starred as Harvard law student Hart facing the fearsome Professor Kingsfield (John Houseman). Among the other films he has appeared in are Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973), Rollercoaster (1977) and Elephant (2003).

Bottoms has the unique distinction of portraying U.S. President George W. Bush in three widely varying productions. In 2000-2001, he played a parody of Bush in the Comedy Central sitcom That's My Bush!; he subsequently appeared as Bush in a cameo appearance in the family film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. Finally, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bottoms once again played Bush, this time in a serious fashion, in the telefilm DC 9/11, one of the first movies to be based upon the attacks.

During an episode of the Fox television show That '70s Show in which a tornado warning has been issued and the students of the high school are trapped, Bottoms is seen as the panicking principal. He appeared in a recurring role during the first season of the FX series Dirt as Gibson Horne, who owned the magazine that series main character Lucy Spiller worked for.

He also co-produced the documentary Picture This - The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (1991), a behind-the-scenes work about the making of the films The Last Picture Show and Texasville. In the documentary, he revealed that he had a crush on his co-star Cybill Shepherd during The Last Picture Show, but she did not reciprocate his romantic feelings, even though she said in a separate interview that she found him "very attractive". He was also heavily featured in the Metallica video for "One", which featured footage of the film Johnny Got His Gun.

Filmography

• Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
• The Last Picture Show (1971)
• Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)
• The Paper Chase (1973)
• The White Dawn (1974)
• The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974)
• Operation Daybreak (1975)
• A Small Town in Texas (1976)
• Rollercoaster (1977)
• The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978)
• Hurricane (1979)
• The High Country (1981)
• Tin Man (1983)
• Hambone and Hillie (1983)
• What Waits Below (1984)
• The Sea Serpent (aka Serpiente de Mar) (1984)
• The Census Taker (1984)
• The Fantasist (1986)
• In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro (1986)
• Invaders from Mars (1986)
• Mio min Mio (Mio in the Land of Faraway) (1987)
• A Case of Honor (1988)
• The Drifter (1988)
• Return from the River Kwai (1989)
• Istanbul (1989)
• Texasville (1990)
• Digger (1993)
• Horses and Champions (1994)
• Ava's Magical Adventure (1994)
• Ill Met by Moonlight (1994)
• Blue Sky (1994)
• Desperate Obsession (1995)
• Hourglass (1995)
• Top Dog (1995)
• Ripper Man (1996)
• The Prince (1996)
• Fox Hunt (1996)
• ' (1996)
• American Hero (1997)
• Total Force (1997)
• Tiger (1997)
• Absolute Force (1997)
• Mr. Atlas (1997)
• Uncle Sam (1997)
• The Waterfront (1998)
• No Rest for the Wicked (1998)
• Black Sea 213 (1998)
• Diamondbacks (1998)
• Mixed Blessings (1998)
• The Man in the Iron Mask (1998/II)
• The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes (1999)
• Lone Tiger (1999)
• The Prince and the Surfer (1999)
• The Hiding Place (2000)
• Held for Ransom (2000)
• The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002)
• Elephant (2003)
• The Entrepreneurs (2003)
• Paradise (2004) (a.k.a. Illusion Infinity)
• The Girl Next Door (2004)
• Paradise, Texas (2005)
• Shanghai Kiss (2007)
• Along the Way (2007)
• Parasomnia (2008)
• ' (2008) (original title: Chinaman's Chance)
• An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong (2009)
• Call of the Wild (2009)
• The Land That Time Forgot (2009)
• Pound of Flesh (2010)
• 1 Nighter (2012)

Television

• Look Homeward, Angel (1972)
• Winesburg, Ohio (1973)
• The Story of David (1976)
• The Moneychangers (1976)
• The Gift of Love (1978)
• A Shining Season (1979)
• Escape (1980)
• East of Eden (1981)
• Love Leads the Way: A True Story (1984)
• Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun (1986)
• The Hitchhiker (1987)
• Island Sons (1987)
• The Twilight Zone (1988)(episode: "The Hellgramite Method")
• Freddy's Nightmares (1989)
• The Ray Bradbury Theater (1990) (episode "Here There Be Tygers")
• Land of the Lost (1991)
• Personal Vendetta (1995)
• Yakuza Connection (1995)
• 500 Nations (1995)
• Death Game (1996)
• Murder Seen (2000)
• That's My Bush! (2001)
• Gideon's Crossing (2001)
• That '70s Show (2002)
• DC 9/11: Time of Crisis (2003)
• Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004)
• NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (2004)
• Jane Doe: Now You See It, Now You Don't (2005)
• Vampire Bats (2005)
• Grey's Anatomy (2005)
• Deceit (2006)
• Dirt (2007)
• Holiday in Handcuffs (2007)
• Lone Rider (2008)
• Deadly Suspicion (2008)
• Bound by a Secret (2009)

Producer

• Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (1991)