It is not very likely that Beau Bridges will take the bus to work in the morning, in a raincoat, with a briefcase - but it is quite conceivable if you look back today at all the roles he played in his career, which began in 1948, when he was seven years old, he started playing a child role in the comedy "No Minor Vices".

And, as his appearance recently in “One Night in Miami” proved, it won't be over anytime soon.

Claudius Seidl

Editor in the features section.

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You can look back, but not even Beau Bridges himself can overlook this work, all the films, series, television games to which he gave, through his sheer presence, something that can be called down-to-earth or globalism. And that was always combined with an offer of identification for those men in the audience who suspected that they would never win an attractiveness competition themselves.

For the hero (or glamorous villain) role, his chin is too flat and his face a little too wide.

But he has eyes, very deep, very dark.

And when he gets the right roles, the viewer is torn back and forth: Should you be lulled by the sluggish facial features - or should you look at your eyes as a warning sign?

With this face, Beau Bridges can play men with an abyss within himself and also those without, which should not be underestimated in American cinema close to life.

What makes men different from boys

How he knows such men is a question that his biography cannot answer. He is the son of the actor couple Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges, Jeff's older brother, he was a boy who grew up in Holmbly Hills, a chic neighborhood in Los Angeles, and whose parents, when they had to work, usually from a limousine to the location were driven. Apparently he learned what he knows about ordinary people's life while studying his scripts. Obviously he was a good student.

He played his first notable role in “The Incident”, a nouvelle vague-like and somewhat too didactic film from 1967. A subway, at night, on the way from the Bronx to Manhattan, two youngsters terrorize the passengers. Nobody dares to fight back. And then Beau Bridges, a young recruit with a cast on his right arm, stands up, ignoring his fear, ignoring the pain. And actually can deal with both of them. Almost his entire career is mapped out in this showdown.

That his younger brother Jeff has narrower and more distinctive features, that Jeff got the more idiosyncratic and the more rebellious, i.e. the better roles: Beau Bridges faced this with admirable bravery, in 1989, in the film "The Fabulous Baker Boys", in which he only apparently the more narrow-minded, loser and boring man. Two brothers, both pianists, perform in second rate ballrooms and of course Jeff is the more gifted, the artist who wants a lot more. And who, when a singer joins the duo, starts a love story with her. But Beau, who has recognized that he is not a genius and who knows that he has to support a family, ultimately acts more grown-up. Jeff is the Baker Boy, Beau is a man: you can feel that, at least when you meet again for the fifth or sixth time (which this film is definitely good enough for).

And that is the consolation that Beau Bridges and Hollywood can give at any time: that attractiveness is not a grace, not a gift of genes.

It is established in action;

you just have to do the right thing.

In the series "Homeland" Bridges played the American president;

a role just big enough for him.

Today he is eighty years old.