With ruggedly handsome looks and a lengthy screen career, actor/producer Nick Nolte has established himself as a major industry figure. His enviable enviable standing as one of Hollywood's most distinctive leading men was further cemented with a 1998 Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Affliction.

A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Nolte was born February 8, 1941. While a student at Arizona State University, he showed talent as a football player, but whatever promise he may have had was aborted by his expulsion from the school for bad grades. A subsequent move to California convinced Nolte that acting was his calling, and he studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and then at Stella Adler's Academy in Los Angeles under Bryan O'Byrne. After his training, Nolte spent 14 years travelling the country and working in regional theatre, occasionally landing parts in B-movies and television films.

Debuting onscreen with a small role in Dirty Little Billy (1972), Nolte was 36 when he finally got his break in the acclaimed television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). His portrayal of Tom Jordache earned him an Emmy nomination and led to a starring role opposite Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep (1977). In addition to starring in the football expose North Dallas Forty (1979), Nolte contributed to its screenplay, written by Peter Gent. Showing a marked preference for unusual and difficult films, it was not long before Nolte became known as a well-rounded actor who brought realism, depth and spirit to even his most off-beat or even unsympathetic roles. Some of those parts include Beat author Neal Cassady in Heart Beat (1980), a homeless bum who helps a dysfunctional rich family in the hit comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), a family man attempting to come to grips with his family's traumatic past while falling in love with his therapist in The Prince of Tides (1991), and a world weary detective in Mulholland Falls (1996). For a grim period in the late '80s, Nolte's career was threatened by his unrestrained drug and alcohol use, but a subsequent rehabilitation served to strengthen his career, paving the way for roles such as Jake McKenna in Oliver Stone's neo-noir thriller U-Turn (1997), and his Oscar-nominated turn as Sheriff Wade Whitehouse in Affliction (1997), for which he also acted as the film's executive producer. Following this triumph, Nolte further re-established his reputation as a major Hollywood player with his role in Terrence Malick's 1998 adaptation of James Jones' The Thin Red Line, in which he headlined a cast including George Clooney, Sean Penn, and John Travolta.