Nolte was born in Omaha, Nebraska on February 8, 1941.[a] His father, Franklin Arthur Nolte (1904–1978), was a farmer's son who ran away from home, nearly dropped out of high school and was a three-time letter winner in football at Iowa State University (1929–31).[1] His mother, Helen (née King; 1914–2000), was a department store buyer, then became an antique dealer, co-owning an antique shop. His father was of German ancestry.[2] Nolte's maternal grandfather, Matthew Leander King, invented the hollow-tile silo and was involved in early aviation. His maternal grandmother ran the student union at Iowa State University.[3] He has an older sister, Nancy, who was an executive for the Red Cross.[4]
Nolte was a model in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In a national magazine advertisement in 1972, he appeared in jeans and an open jean shirt for Clairol's "Summer Blonde" hair lightener sitting on a log next to a blonde Anne Powers
[9] and they appeared on the packaging.
Acting
Nolte as Tom Jordache in Rich Man, Poor Man, 1976
Nolte first starred in the television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, based on Irwin Shaw's 1970 best-selling novel.[10] Later, he appeared in over 40 films, playing a wide variety of characters. Diversity of character, trademark athleticism, and gravelly voice are signatures of his career. In 1973, he guest-starred in the Griff episode, "Who Framed Billy the Kid?", as Billy Randolph, a football player accused of murder. Nolte also made two guest appearances in the television series Barnaby Jones in 1974 and 1975. He co-starred with Andy Griffith in Winter Kill, a television film made as the pilot of a possible television series, and another one, Adams of Eagle Lake,[11] but neither was picked up.
In 1992, Nolte was named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. When asked about the selection he said "Are you sure you didn't make a mistake? My personal choice is Walter Cronkite."[33]
Nolte in 2003
Nolte continued to work in the 2000s, taking smaller parts in Clean and Hotel Rwanda, both performances receiving positive reviews.[34][35] He also played supporting roles in the 2006 drama Peaceful Warrior[36] and the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder.[37] In 2011, Nolte played recovering alcoholic Paddy Conlon in Warrior, and was nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.[38] Beginning in 2011, Nolte starred with Dustin Hoffman in the HBO series Luck. At the start of production of the second season, however, HBO ended the series after the death of three horses during filming.[39] In 2013, he was in the movie Parker which starred Jason Statham. In 2015, Nolte starred in the biopic comedy-drama A Walk in the Woods[40] and in the revenge thriller Return to Sender.[41]
From 2016 to 2017, Nolte starred in Graves on Epix about a volatile, hard-drinking former U.S. president who has been retired for 25 years and who has a political epiphany to right the wrongs of his past administration in very public and unpredictable ways.[42]
For Nolte, acting is not a career but something he needs to do, he says, "a need in the sense that I can't find anything as complex and interesting to do, but I need it in a story," and "I don't want to do reality because reality never runs smooth". He likes to vanish into a role "if the story reaches up to where the great actor is, the great actor disappears, and the story becomes number one, that's as real as it gets".[43] Nolte appeared as recurring character Kuiil in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian in 2019.[44]
Personal life
Nolte married Clytie Lane in 2016.[45] He was previously married to Sheila Page, Sharyn Haddad, and Rebecca Linger.[45][46] Nolte and Linger have a son, Brawley (b. 1986), who has had a few acting roles himself and is married to Indian-American actress Navi Rawat.[47] Nolte and Lane have a daughter, Sophia (b. 2007). Sophia played his granddaughter in Head Full of Honey.[48][49] Nolte and Linger also had a daughter in 1983 who was stillborn.[46] Nolte lived with Karen Eklund, who later sued him for palimony.[46][50] He has also dated Debra Winger and Vicki Lewis.[51][52]
Legal troubles and substance abuse
Nolte is known for his "bad-boy reputation".[53][54][46]
In 1961, he was arrested for selling counterfeit draft card documents and given a 45-year prison sentence and a $75,000 fine, but the sentence was suspended.[55][56] However, the felony conviction left him ineligible for military service. He had felt obligated to serve in the Vietnam War, and says that he felt incomplete as a young man for not going to Vietnam.[57]
On September 11, 2002, Nolte was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in Malibu, California. Tests later showed that he was under the influence of GHB. Nolte responded that he has "been taking it for four years and I've never been raped."[58] Three days later, he checked himself into Silver Hill Hospital in Connecticut for counseling.[59][60] On December 12, 2002, he pleaded no contest to charges of driving under the influence. He was given three years' probation, with orders to undergo alcohol and drug counseling with random testing required.[61][62]
In 2005, The Independent reported that Nolte had struggled with substance abuse for "the majority of his adult life" and had begun abusing alcohol at an early age. After remaining sober for nearly 10 years, he resumed drinking in the late 1990s. Following his 2002 arrest, he again stopped drinking.[60] In 2018, he told The Saturday Evening Post that he did not have a drug problem and that he had been "relatively clean outside of prescription stuff for years".[63]
^While Nolte was indeed born in 1941 (a date consistent with his birth registration in the Nebraska Birth Index, publicly accessible at Ancestry.com),[76] some printed publications have cited 1940 as his year of birth.[77][78][79][80] Most actively maintained online sources list 1941.[81][82][83][84]
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External links
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