JEFF DANIELS (Colonel Joshua Chamberlain) made his feature film debut in Milos Forman’s Ragtime, but it was his portrayal as Debra Winger’s husband in Terms of Endearment that catapulted him to stardom.
Woody Allen was among the first to recognize the actor’s talent and comic ability and cast Daniels in the starring role in The Purple Rose of Cairo. He then went on to star in a number of films including Something Wild, The Butcher’s Wife, Checking Out, Fly Away Home, 101 Dalmatians, Speed, Pleasantville, Arachnophobia, Gettysburg, Dumb and Dumber, and most recently, Blood Work and The Hours. Television credits include Robert Altman’s The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Lee Grant’s No Place Like Home, A&E’s The Crossing, Saturday Night Live, and Cheaters for HBO.
Daniels’ success is not limited to the screen; his appearances on the Broadway stage include Lanford Wilson’s Redwood Curtain and Fifth of July, which won him a Drama Desk Award for Best Supporting Actor. Off Broadway, Daniels received a Drama Desk Nomination for Lemon Sky, as well as an Obie for his performance in the Circle Repertory Company production of Johnny Got His Gun.
Back home in Chelsea, Michigan, he has continued his passion for the theater by founding the Purple Rose Theater Company, which he dedicated to encourage and develop Midwestern actors, playwrights, directors and designers. All of Daniels’ own plays have premiered there; Shoe Man (Detroit News Critics Award for Best New Play); The Tropical Pickle, The Vast Difference, Thy Kingdom’s Coming, Apartment 3A, Boom Town, Escanaba in da Moonlight, and most recently, Across the Way, which was nominated for Best New Play by the American Theatre Critics Association.
In 1999, Daniels formed Purple Rose Films, a Michigan-based independent production company. His first film as writer/actor/director, Escanaba in da Moonlight, a comedy about deer hunting based on his hit play, was self-distributed in Michigan and Wisconsin, grossing $2.3 million. His second film, Super Sucker, a comedy about Midwestern vacuum cleaner salesmen, won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO. The film was released in January 2003 in Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago.
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