Bruce Dern
"Nebraska"
In "Nebraska." Bruce Dern plays the cantankerous and not-so-gracefully-aging Woody Grant, who insists on walking across three states to claim sweepstakes winnings, which his son (played by "Saturday Night Live" alum Will Forte) says don't exist.
"I knew when I saw the script on paper that I had to play the role," Dern told correspondent Lee Cowan. "I don't mean THEY wanted me to have to do it, but Bruce Dern had to find a way to be able to play this role."
"Nebraska"
Bruce Dern first met director Alexander Payne (left) when Dern's daughter, Laura Dern. starred in Payne's "Citizen Ruth." Ten years ago, Payne showed him the screenplay for "Nebraska." "He didn't say, 'You're the part.' He said, 'What do you think of it?' And I read it, and it was all on the page. It struck me that it worked. Every character worked, the story worked, it was wonderful.
"And then I didn't hear anything. He went off and did 'Sideways.' And then I didn't hear anything, and he went off and did 'The Descendants.' So I figured, 'Wow, obviously, I must be in the way of helping this get made! (laughs) Eighteen months ago, he actually gave me the role."
Bruce Dern
Bruce Dern (far left) with his siblings in a family photo.
Bruce MacKleish Dern was born into old money in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1936. His grandfather was the governor of Utah, who later went on to become Secretary of War under FDR. His great-uncle was Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Archibald MacLeish.
Runner
Bruce Dern was a competitive runner in high school and college.
When Dern dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania to pursue acting, his family largely disowned him.
"When I decided to become an actor, I was gonna make a living 'pretending,'" he said. "They thought that's what acting was, pretending."
Hollywood
Left: A head shot of Bruce Dern from 1964.
After studying with Lee Strasberg at Actors' Studio, and appearing in Broadway productions of Sean O'Casey's "The Shadow of a Gunman," and Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth," Dern moved to California to pursue an acting career unsustainable in New York theater.
Meet Your Maker
TV Appearances
Among Bruce Dern's numerous TV guest roles in the 1960s were the "Outer Limits" episode, "The Zanti Misfits," where he encounters an invading force of alien insects (left). Dern also made several appearances on the western "Gunsmoke."
Dern told Cowan after one of his "embroidered" death scenes, "Gunsmoke" star Jim Arness looked down at him and said, "My God. That's pretty interesting, but who gives a **** about how you die. Just die already! Otherwise we're gonna cut away and you're still alive."
"Well, that's the point," Dern responded. "because then I can come back in another episode!"
"The Wild Angels"
Bruce, Diane and Laura
"The Trip"
"The Trip"
"Psych-Out"
"They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
"The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant"
Bruce Dern played a scientist who predilection for transplanting extra heads on to living bodies of animals takes its natural progression, in "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant."
"I had to go out the week I married my wife, Andrea, and sell a movie called 'The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant,'" Dern told Cowan. "And we weren't even the best two-headed transplant movie that year! That was ['The Thing With Two Heads'] with Rosie Greer and Ray Milland!"
"The Cowboys"
Bruce Dern was a familiar face in westerns in the late 1960s and early '70s, including "The War Wagon" opposite John Wayne and Kirk Douglas; "Hang 'Em High" with Clint Eastwood; Will Penny, starring Charlton Heston; and "Support Your Local Sheriff," starring James Garner.
But his most memorable role was in 1972's "The Cowboys" (left), as the dastardly Long Hair.
"The Cowboys"
"The Cowboys"
Long Hair (Bruce Dern) shoots Wil Andersen (John Wayne) in the back in "The Cowboys." Although the Duke had died on-screen a few times (such as by an enemy sniper in "Sands of Iwo Jima"), he had never been shot dead by another actor.
Dern told Cowan that, even today, people still come up to him: "'You killed my buddy!'
"I said, 'Hey, bud, he died of cancer. It was a movie. Can you get over it?' 'We'll never get over it.'"
"Silent Running"
"No, my definition of a movie star is, A, someone who dominates a decade above the title, starring in movies; B, someone who gets money raised because he decides or she decides to do the movie. Well, Bruce is not the first person they've been going to to get a movie made. Brucie gets movies when 17 other guys pass on the role and the studio, or whatever it is, is already invested in a certain amount of money. So they say, 'Okay, well, I'll choose Dern.' Seventeen guys turned down 'Silent Running' before it came to me."
"Silent Running"
Cowan asked Dern about the difficulty he's faced as an actor: "Didn't that get discouraging? I mean, you've got your parents who don't want you to do it, you've got Lee Strasberg even saying, 'This is gonna be a tough road ahead,' and you just kept plugging. I mean a lot of people would have bailed."
"Well, you keep plugging because you get a chance to do something because you are an individual and you're unique, to be involved with a group of people that just might do something that's never been done," Dern replied.
"The King of Marvin Gardens"
"The Laughing Policeman"
"The Great Gatsby"
"Smile"
"Family Plot"
Hitch
In his autobiography, "Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have," Bruce Dern writes that he asked Hitchcock (for whom he'd played a bit part in "Marnie") why he was cast in "Family Plot."
"You know why you're in the picture?" Hitchcock said. "Because you're unpredictable. I know the frame is perfect because I have it in my office. And my setup is perfect, but, within the setup, I have to be entertained. And you're entertaining, Bruce, and you're unpredictable. That's why you're in this film."
"The Twist"
In Claude Chabrol's "The Twist," Stephane Audran and Bruce Dern play a couple who partake in affairs with others.
"Black Sunday"
"Coming Home"
"Coming Home"
"When the movie came out," Dern told Cowan, "the difficulty for me was I started getting a lot of congratulatory stuff for the performance and for the movie, and I never served myself. It's not that I ducked it in 1956, '57; no one was going anywhere [at that time]. Some Marines went to Suez, I think, but that was it. But I felt bad about the fact that I hadn't done that - I'm the grandson of the Secretary of War - and I was being somebody who had done that."
"Harry Tracy, Desperado"
"That Championship Season"
"After Dark, My Sweet"
"The 'Burbs"
"The Astronaut Farmer"
"Last Man Standing"
"Monster"
In "Monster" (2003), the true story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, Bruce Dern played Thomas, a barfly who befriends Wuornos (Oscar-winner Charlize Theron).
"Monster"
"Big Love"
Dern received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for "Big Love."
"Big Love"
"The Golden Boys"
"The Hole"
Hollywood Walk of Fame
"Twixt"
"Django Unchained"
"Nebraska"
The fact that recognition for Dern should come so strong after half a century doesn't surprise the actor; famed director Elia Kazan told him so, flat-out.
"He said, 'When you get out there, it's gonna take you a long, long time,'" Dern recalled. "'Nobody's gonna appreciate what you do until you're in your late 60s.' Well, that was thrilling to hear at 24 years old, you know what I mean?"
"Very prophetic though now, right?" Lee Cowan said.
"Oh yeah, well, but who knows that then?"
Cannes International Film Festival
Cannes International Film Festival
"Nebraska"
"Nebraska" co-stars Bruce Dern and June Squibb, who play Woody and Kate Grant.
Dern said being offered the role in "Nebraska" was the opportunity of a lifetime. "Well, so far," he told Cowan. "I'm not stopping, knocking wood, you know? I mean, I got a lot to do that I still want to do as an actor. I mean, I'm 77, but I still look forward to the kinds of roles that [being] in a movie like this let me have an opportunity to have a crack at.
"I mean, yeah, I know there's limited roles for guys my age. For women my age, it's really limited. But in our movie, you look at June [Squibb], you look at Mary Louise [Wilson], you look at Angela McEwan. They're fabulous in the movie, and they're being discovered. They're in a movie that is opening all around America and is getting a certain kind of nice reception, and that was a treat."
"Nebraska"
AFI Gala
Director Quentin Tarantino and actor Bruce Dern pose for a picture at the AFI Gala Screening Tribute to Bruce Dern, at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif., November 11, 2013.
Tarantino called Dern a "national treasure," because "Bruce Dern is one of the finest and most entertaining examples of great American acting - full of raw vitality, grabbing your attention, never letting go, spontaneous. Always looking for a moment, always looking for an opportunity to do something. Not content with being palsey-walsy with the other actors, he's trying to BEAT them!
"He doesn't need six weeks of rehearsal like the Brits; he shows up on Monday on 'The Big Valley,' he kicks Lee Majors' ass, and he goes home!"
Governors Awards
New York Film Festival
Actor Bruce Dern speaks during the 51st New York Film Festival at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, October 10, 2013 in New York City.
For more info:
"Nebraska" (Official movie site)
"Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have: An Unrepentant Memoir" by Bruce Dern with Christopher Fryer and Robert Crane (Wiley)
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan