Actor Matt Dillon was born into a pop-culture milieu: he was named for the protagonist of TV's Gunsmoke, and was the nephew of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond, of Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and Rip Kirby fame. Discovered by a casting director at 14, Dillon was cast as one of the dead-end teens in 1979's Over the Edge. After making an excellent impression as a high-school bully in My Bodyguard (1980), Dillon settled into tough-but-decent leading roles, where he has flourished ever since. Recently, Dillon has made successful efforts to divest himself of his teen-idol image with his unsympathetic portrayals of a strung-out slacker in Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and a consciousless killer in A Kiss Before Dying (1991). Matt Dillon is the older brother of film star Kevin Dillon.