Dennis Quaid -- the Right Stuff

A Texan-bred good-ole-boy whose background includes waiting tables, carpenter's apprentice and painted clown at Houston's AstroWorld. His destiny expanded vastly to actor, musician, producer, composer and dragon slayer.

Born on April 9, 1954 in Houston, Texas, son of an Electrician (William) and Real Estate broker (Nita), Dennis Quaid began his acting career in high school, where he found himself too small for football and tried for the drama of plays. At the age of 12 his parents divorced.

Holding his own and surviving the fist-fights and shadow of his older brother Randy Quaid (actor, director --1950), he made it to the movie screen. Dennis has a half sister, Younger, and half brother, Buddy.

Dennis's first movie was a gangster movie, Crazy Mama (1975), staring Cloris Leachman with the setting of the great Depression. His next movie was 9/30/55 (1977) where he plays a young high-school senior who loses his hero, James Dean to an auto accident on that date. Seniors followed in 1978 and then Our Winning Season where he met his first wife, actress, Pamela Soles and married in 1978.

In 1979 he stared in a turning point movie of his career, Breaking Away, in which the local boy in a college town opts to move beyond his working-class roots via cycling. Quaid stared in two made for TV movies, Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill (1979) and Are You in the House Alone? (1978).

From primitive Caveman (1981) comedy, gun westerns, The long Riders (1980) and Wyatt Earp (1994) to the achievement of space The Right Stuff (1983). Dennis has had a career of many screen seductions with famous actresses like, Jessica Lange, Julia Roberts, Winona Ryder, Meryl Streep, Kathleen Turner and Debra Winger. That is a career in itself.

He was divorced in 1983 and then lived with actress Lea Thompson whom he met during his filming of Jaws 3-D (1983). Two Sci-fi movies were released Dreamscape (1984), a thriller, based on dream control and Enemy Mine (1985) where two different beings learn to cope with one another in order to survive. The Big Easy (1987) is a steamy movie, where Dennis plays a detective working with sultry District Attorney, Ellen Barkin.

Another law intense drama Suspect (1987) with Cher came out the same year. Dennis met his second wife Meg Ryan (actress) on the set of the movie Innerspace (1987) and they married in 1991. In 1992 they had a son named Jack Henry Quaid. It was this marriage that helped him combat his drug and alcohol addictions and now they appear to be a model Hollywood couple (if there is such a thing).

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