American actor,Scott Glenn, 83, is famous for his supporting roles in Nashville, Apocalypse Now, The Right Stuff, The Hunt for Red October, and The Silence of the Lambs. The veteran actor overcame a childhood disability that affected his walking to become a celebrated movie star.
He is married to Carol Schwartz and has two daughters Dakota Gleen and Rio Glenn. Although many expect the entertainer to take on more grandpa roles, he still enjoys playing the tough guy in movies.
Glenn Scott’s Life Before Becoming an Actor
Glenn was born on January 26, 1941, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and is 83 years old. As a boy, the actor was bedridden for a year and battled illness for some years which worried his parents Theodore Glenn and Elizabeth Glenn. Doctors’ prediction was of little help as they said the boy would limp for the rest of his life.
Scott’s health challenge rather than weighing him down, woke the fighting spirit in him. He spent hours reading books and even dreamt of becoming like the famous English poet Lord Byron. Refusing to be handicapped, he trained himself and soon was no longer limping. After high school, the Nashville star enrolled at William and Mary College where he read English.
Thanks to his never-say-never attitude, Glenn was fit enough to serve in the US Marines for three years. After military service, he worked for the Kenosha Daily Tribune as a crime reporter. He believed this experience would further equip him to become an author. But this wasn’t to be because he found it difficult writing dialogues and turned his sight elsewhere. All this while, he had no dreams of becoming an actor.
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He Took Up Acting to Be a Better Writer
Glenn knew that to be a successful writer, he had to be good at writing dialogues. So, he packed up his bag left for New York, and took acting lessons in Berghof Studio. It was here that he realized that he was a good actor. Life started to have more meaning to him. Without wasting time, he phoned his parents to inform them that he was no longer interested in being a journalist but an actor. Armed with his parents’ blessings, he faced his new career headlong.
Scott started performing in the Broadway theatre and portrayed Andy in The Impossible Years (1965-1967). In 1970, he made his film debut in The Baby Maker. Most of his early roles in Hollywood were low-budget productions. It was not until 1980 that he had his breakthrough in the movie industry.
Glenn Saved Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s Life
Glenn was among 50 actors hoping to secure a supporting role in the movie Apocalypse Now (1979). Francis Coppola director of The Godfather (1972) was in charge of this work. The movie about Vietnam war was shot in the Philippines. While the rest of the crew and cast retired to Manila the capital city for the weekend, Scott and a few others remained on location. A powerful typhoon struck the country affecting the sets for the movie.
Coppola visited the location a few days later and was in an anchored boat with some crew members when the water they were on began to violently threaten the vessel. Glenn rushed to the scene and cut the boat free to enable it to escape the turbulence. For his situational awareness and bravery, the grateful director promised to give the actor a juicer role in his film. For reasons best known to him, the actor turned it down to play an even smaller role of Lt. Richard M. Colby.
He Took a Break From Hollywood
Not getting what he wanted from the movie industry, Glenn Scott left Hollywood in 1978. Along with his wife and two daughters, he moved to Ketchum, Idaho. The Daredevil actor hoped to spend his time there working as a bartender and serving as an apprentice to a hunting guide. It wasn’t long before a friend from his military days called him to perform a small role in a movie he was shooting in Mexico. He accepted the job and received $2,000 in the end.
Fate seemed not to favor the actor’s break from the film industry as another offer came. In a stopover in Los Angeles with his wife, Glenn got another offer from James Bridge to play a villain in his movie. The actor agreed to perform in the Urban Cowboy as Wes Hightower an ex-con bull rider. This was the push his acting career needed as offers to star in various movies began to filter in.
Glenn Learned to Use His Right Hand to Interpret a Role
Glenn is an actor who always strives to give his best in his performances. In the movie ‘The Right Stuff’, he played the role of Alan Shepard and to better interpret the role, had to rest his more favoured left hand and teach himself to use his right hand. Glenn’s dedication to his work didn’t stop there. In the TV series ‘Daredevil’, he portrayed Stick, a blind Sensai, and to make his performance more authentic, he practiced peripheral feeling. This technique involves taking in information from the outer edges of one’s vision rather than just what is directly in front of them.
Another time, he got a job in a kitchen removing the internal organs of fish meant to be cooked. He spent 2 hours every night on this. He had to do this because he was going to play a role as a man preparing fish he caught on a boat. So to make the scene more believable, he needed to appear like he had been doing this for a long time.
He is a Fitness Freak
Once Glenn Scott conquered his childhood handicap through intense exercise, he never looked back. The Defenders actor takes his physical health seriously and engages in rigorous training to maintain a lean and muscular body. Even at 83 years, he has not allowed his old age to slow him down.
Who is He Married to?
Scott Glenn is married to Carol Schwartz a celebrated ceramist. They tied the knot on September 10, 1968 and have remained together since then. She is a Jew and through her influence, Glenn converted from being a Catholic to being a Jew too. They have two daughters namely, Dakota Glenn and Rio Glenn.