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Arliss Howard

Arliss Howard has built the kind of career that rewards a closer look. Born on October 18, 1954, in Independence, Missouri, he studied English literature at Columbia College before working in the Wyoming oil industry, spending time on a New Mexico ranch and living in Hawaii. That varied path preceded an equally wide-ranging life on stage and screen. As an actor, Howard has often brought a composed, watchful presence to supporting roles. His film work includes Full Metal Jacket, Tequila Sunrise, Men Don't Leave, Ruby, The Sandlot and Natural Born Killers. In 1997, he played Peter Ludlow, John Hammond's ruthless nephew, in Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Later appearances in The Time Traveler's Wife, Moneyball and Mank carried that career into new decades without tying him to a single genre or type of production. Television has given Howard room to work in a different register. He won a CableACE Award for the television film Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture and received another nomination for The Man Who Captured Eichmann. He also had a recurring role in Medium, directing several episodes, and played intelligence-agency supervisor Kale Ingram in AMC's Rubicon. Howard's work behind the camera is an important part of the picture. He starred in and directed Big Bad Love and Dawn Anna, both co-written with his brother James Howard. Debra Winger, Howard's wife, starred in both films. His credits also extend to film producing, screenwriting and directing. Alongside that screen career, Howard has maintained substantial stage work. He appeared in the 2009 Broadway revival of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone and in productions at the American Repertory Theater, including How I Learned to Drive and In the Jungle of the Cities. Roles in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Ivanov further underline the range of a career shaped less by celebrity machinery than by steady movement between film, television, theater and directing.