Biography
Impromptu shot of Woody Harrelson in Eugene, Oregon, 2004
Woody Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor. Born Woodrow Tracy Harrelson in Midland, Texas to Charles Voyde Harrelson and Diane Lou Oswald, he grew up in Lebanon, Ohio.
Harrelson attended Hanover College in Indiana, where he studied drama. After graduation, he moved to New York City and became an understudy in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues. In 1985 he was cast as the naive but genial Midwestern bartender Woody Boyd on the television series Cheers and he won the "Funniest Newcomer" American Comedy Award and an Emmy for the role. His first film was Wildcats with Goldie Hawn in 1986. His early films were mostly unmemorable, until he portrayed Michael J. Fox's romantic rival in Doc Hollywood. From there on, films have been Harrelson's career, and he is the only regular cast member from "Cheers" to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Harrelson has appeared in such films as Money Train, White Men Can't Jump, The Cowboy Way, Indecent Proposal, The Hi-Lo Country, and Natural Born Killers and Kingpin. In 1996 he starred in the controversial The People vs. Larry Flynt, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He had a fairly long run on the NBC sitcom Will and Grace as Grace's love interest Nathan. He also played a transvestite prostitute in Anger Management, and FBI agent Stan in After The Sunset. His most recent film is North Country, which was released in 2005.
Harrelson is an outspoken supporter for the legalization of marijuana and hemp in the USA. On June 1, 1996 he was intentionally arrested in Kentucky after symbolically planting four hemp seeds to challenge state law that failed to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana. He won the case. An environmental activist, he once climbed the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco to unfurl a banner that said, ``Hurwitz. Aren't ancient redwoods more precious than gold?" in protest of MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber CEO Charles Hurwitz, who once stated, "He who has the gold, rules." Harrelson, an ethical vegan and raw foodist, has also denounced animal experiments in the cosmetics industry. He has travelled the American West Coast on a bike in caravan with a hemp oil-fueled biodiesel bus (the subject of the independent documentary, Go Further) and also narrated the documentary "Grass" (1999). He is also an antiwar activist and has often spoken publicly against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Infamous father
Harrelson's father, Charles Harrelson, a professional hitman, was twice convicted of murder for hire [1], the second conviction resulting from the 1979 shooting of federal judge John H. Wood, Jr. For a time Harrelson's father claimed to be one of the hobos taken off the "grassy knoll" in Dallas, Texas at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, or even one of the shooters. Harrelson has frequently said that his father's past has colored his own present.
