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Chris Ellis
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| Born: | April 14, 1956 (age 50) Dallas, Texas |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Actor |
Chris Ellis (born April 14, 1956) is an actor with parts in movies such as My Cousin Vinny and Days of Thunder as well as countless television programs.
Chris Ellis always wanted to be an actor because of television. He grew up in the 50's in the deep south in a "world of privation and violence", but saw on television people who seemed to have lives of ease and privilege.
On February 9th, 1964, when Chris was 7 years old, The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. They sang "She Loves You," and "I Want To Hold Your Hand," which they had written, and "Til There Was You," which was written by Jerry Herman, who also wrote "Hello, Dolly."
Later in 1964, Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were killed by member of the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Three of the confessed killers were tried for murder in Mississippi state court and were acquitted. One of the Klansmen, Terry Keeter, who was never charged with any crime, was, by 1968, working for the sheriff's department in Senatobia, Mississippi. That summer, he and his partner, Lekk Hopper, arrested Ellis for fishing without a license as he stood at the edge of Sardis Lake. "I have never been fishing in my life, though in 1968 my hair was long for a man by Mississippi standards."
These events helped him to decide to blow town altogether as soon as he might finish his schooling. Which he did, whistling 'Hey fiddle dee dee, the actor's life for me.'
It took him seven years to finish college however, because "I have always been shiftless". During those years Chris became involved in community theatre in Memphis, where "I did and do still think the quality of the work has always been quite good". By the time he moved to New York to seek his way amid the world's ruin, He had worked with many excellent actors in about two dozen plays, classical and contemporary. "I cannot imagine what might have supplanted that background for a newcomer in New York".
After working in regional theatre for a year or so, Chris fell off the radar screen, as some will do, and did not work for about ten years. During that time he lived in "bone-grinding poverty" in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. In one 9 month period of 1987, Chris accepted 102 dinner invitations. "I don't know why they kept arriving, nor why I counted them, though I do know why I accepted them."
When Chris began working in film at age 40, he began for the first time to make a living as an actor. By then he was no longer in the flush of youth, and no longer had hair like "Algernon Swinburne, nor hips like two coconuts".
Since then Chris has made a living playing character roles, "mostly southerners, men who snarl and vote for Republicans, and who work for NASA in Mission Control".