Jeff Bridges - Hollywood Foreign Press Cecil B. DeMille Award

The Clint Eastwood Archive would like to send our congratulations and sincere best wishes to Jeff Bridges who will tonight be honoured for his career achievement at tonight’s 76th annual Golden Globe Awards.

Early days found him opposite his father in television’s “Sea Hunt” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show.” He caught his feature film stride right out of the gate, though, with Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 “The Last Picture Show.” For his performance as Duane Jackson, a teenager searching for direction in the dust of 1951 North Texas, Bridges earned his first of seven Oscar nominations. He marvels today at how low-key the occasion was then. There was no campaigning or interviews building up to the big day, just a phone call with the happy news.

Bridges would become a vital ingredient for directors throughout the 1970s. He scored raves opposite Stacy Keach in John Huston’s “Fat City” in 1972. He took on the role of Don Parritt in John Frankenheimer’s 1973 adaptation of “The Iceman Cometh” and landed yet another supporting actor nomination opposite Clint Eastwood in Michael Cimino’s “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” in 1974. By mid-decade he was already headlining such major spectacles as John Guillermin’s “King Kong.”

In early 2010, on his fifth Oscar nomination — and by then considered wildly overdue for recognition — Bridges finally heard his name called at the Academy Awards. He won the lead actor prize for Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” the story of a rambling country-western singer adapted from a Thomas Cobb novel and, through Cooper, somewhat inspired by the life of Waylon Jennings.

“That was a dream — I guess come true, in a way,” Bridges said in 2016. “Not even come true. It just seemed like a dream! It was an out-of-body experience.”

He would add another nomination, for the Coens’ “True Grit” remake, the very next year, and he continues to register those accolades today, most recently for his grizzled Texas Ranger in David Mackenzie’s “Hell or High Water.” 

He admits to having a bit of reticence in taking on new projects, lest he be kept from some other enticing opportunity. But he has maintained a striking pace all the same as one of the most prolific actors of his generation.

And despite the early rebellion, he eventually came to agree with his dad. Working in show business is, indeed, a great life.