Kurt Russell is an American actor who rose to fame in the 1960s and is popularly known for his performance in the movie Silkwood (1983). Russel started his career with television and has essayed anti hero roles in movies such as Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and Escape from L.A. (1996). The actor was also nominated for an Emmy award for his role in the television film Elvis (1979).

Early Life
Russell was born to the actor Bing Russell and dancer Louise Julia Russell in Springfield, Massachusetts. He has three sisters Jamie, Jill, and Jody, and graduated from the Thousand Oaks High School from California in 1969.

Russell started his acting career with TV and while he was appearing on TV as a child artist, he, like his father, was also inclined towards playing professional Baseball. In the early 1970s, Russell was also a part of the team Bend Rainbows as a switch hitting second baseman. While he found success with the sport, he got injured in 1973 after colliding with an incoming runner at second base during a baseball game. The resulting injury that tore the rotator cuff in Russell`s right shoulder forced him to quit the game and return to acting.

Personal Life
Kurt Russell was married to actress Season Hubley and the couple has a son Boston, who was born on February 16, 1980. However, the couple divorced in 1983 and later Russell began dating actress Goldie Hawn. With Hawn, Russell has a son, Wyatt, who was born on July 10, 1986.

TV Career
Russell began his acting career at the age of 11 with Elvis Presley`s musical film, It Happened at the World`s Fair in 1963. In the same year, he also made a guest appearance in the ABC series Our Man Higgins and was also part of one of the episodes of the medical drama The Eleventh Hour. However, his first major role came with the TV series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963 to 1964). In the next couple of years, Russell was seen in several TV series such as The Fugitive, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, Gillian`s Island, The Legend of Jesse James, and Laredo.

In 1966, while he was just a teen, Russell signed a long term contract with Walt Disney Studios and in the following year, he appeared on Walt Disney`s TV series Wonderful World of Color and the musical film The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Justice.

In 1974 Russell was cast in the ABC series The New Land, which received critical acclaim but failed to sustain for an entire season. Owing to the poor ratings of the series, only six of the 13 episodes were aired. Later, after appearing The Quest, a 15 episode NBC series, Russell was seen in the television movie Elvis directed by John Carpenter. He portrayed the character of the legendary singer Elvis Presley and was highly appreciated for his performance. The actor was also nominated an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Special. This was Russell`s first collaboration with director John Carpenter the duo would later go on to team up for several successful movies and his last TV role before he entirely began acting in commercial movies.

Movie Career
After appearing in an uncredited role in the 1963 movie It Happened at the World`s Fair, Russell`s first credited role came with the movie Guns of Diablo in 1965. In the next decade Russell went on to star in movies such as The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don`t (1972), Superdad (1973), and The Deadly Tower (1975).

It was in the 1980s, Russell teamed up with director John Carpenter on several occasions with several of his roles being the best of his career many of these roles were of an anti hero. One of the most famous roles of Russell came with the movie Escape From New York, released in 1981. He essayed the character of Snake Plissken in the movie and its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996). Another collaboration of the duo was seen in 1982 for the movie The Thing, a science fiction horror film Russell played the character of R. J. MacReady an Antartic helicopter pilot. The movie, however, was a failure at the box office. He also appeared in the movie Big Trouble in Little China (1986), which alike The Thing, was a commercial failure. However, both the movies went on to gain cult status.

Russell also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor Motion Picture for his performance in the movie Silkwood (1983). The next decade saw him appear in several films of which his role as Lt. Stephen `Bull` McCaffrey in the movie Backdraft (1991), as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone (1993), and as Colonel Jack O`Neil in the movie Stargate (1994).

The early 2000s saw Russell yet again portraying the character of Elvis Presley in the movie 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001); starring as an Elvis impersonator in the movie. His next prominent role was the portrayal of Herb Brook, the U.S. Olympic hockey coach who led the national team that won Gold at the 1980 Winter Olympics, in the movie Miracle (2004). Many critics applauded his role with Claudia Puig of USA Today, wrote `In many ways Miracle belongs to Kurt Russel` while Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times wrote, `Mr. Russell`s cagey and remote performance gives Miracle its few breezes of fresh, albeit methane scented, air.` The actor next played a villainous stuntman in Quentin Tarantino`s segment `Death Proof` in the American double feature film Grindhouse (2007). The movie was the last feature film of the year for Russell, and the actor only returned to the silver screen in 2011 with the movie Touchback.

In 2014 Russell starred in a documentary The Battered Bastards of Baseball which is based on the defunct minor league baseball team, Portland Mavericks owned by his father, Bing Russell. Later, Russell also became a part of the famous Fast and the Furious series, starring in the seventh installment of the series, Furious 7, released in 2015. Vin Diesel, one of the lead actors of the movie, also stated that Russell`s character was introduced in a role that would eventually be a part of the future installments of the series. In the same year, he essayed the character of John `The Hangman` Ruth in Quentin Tarantino`s The Hateful Eight. His 2016 release includes Deepwater Horizon, a biographical disaster film. In 2017 he reprised his role as Mr. Nobody in The Fate of the Furious, the eighth instalment of the series. He followed it up with the main antagonist role in Marvel`s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and a leading role in yet another Tarantino film - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). He also played Santa Clause in The Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020).