ERIC STOLTZ Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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ERIC STOLTZ

Name: Eric Stoltz                                                                 
Born: 30 September 1961 Santa Barbara, California, United States                   
                                                                                   
Eric H. Stoltz(born September 30, 1961) is a Golden Globe-nominated American       
actor. He is known for playing either sensitive misfits (Mask, Kicking and         
Screaming, The Waterdance) or sociopathic criminals (Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe).   
Stoltz has also appeared in the movies Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Some Kind     
of Wonderful, Memphis Belle, Rob Roy, Little Women, The Rules of Attraction, and   
The House of Mirth.                                                               
                                                                                   
Stoltz was born in Whittier, California, the son of Evelyn B. (née Vawter), a     
violinist and schoolteacher who died in 1994, and Jack Stoltz, an elementary       
school teacher. He has two older sisters, Catherine Stoltz (1954) and             
Susan R. Stoltz (1957). Eric was raised in both American Samoa and Santa           
Barbara, California, where, by the age of 14, he was earning money by playing     
piano for the local musical theater productions. He attended the University of     
Southern California, where he dropped out in his Junior year.                     
                                                                                   
In the 1970s, Stoltz joined a repertory company that did 10 plays at the           
Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, UK. He returned to the states in 1981 where he     
studied with Stella Adler and Peggy Feury in New York, and soon appeared in his   
first film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Originally cast as Marty McFly   
in Back to the Future (1985), he was replaced after eight weeks of filming, when   
Michael J. Fox (the director's first choice for the role) agreed to divide time   
between the movie and his television sitcom, Family Ties. The director, Robert     
Zemeckis, has said that while Stoltz provided an admirable performance, it         
lacked the humorous feel that Zemeckis was looking for. Some of the original       
footage (shots where Stoltz doesn't appear, but was on set) was used in the film.