Name	Richard Jenkins
Height	6' 1"
Naionality	American
Date of Birth	4 May 1947
Place of Birth	DeKalb, Illinois, USA
Famous for

While studying theater at Illinois Wesleyan University, Richard Jenkins developed a long and distinguished local theater career, most notably a 15-year stint at Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, where he served as artistic director for four years. In 1975, he appeared in their production of "Brother to Dragons," which was filmed for broadcast on PBS.

Nine years later, Jenkins returned to PBS, acted in their award-winning miniseries "Concealed Enemies" (1984), which dramatizes the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss (portrayed by Edward Herrmann) of perjury before a federal grand jury and his resulting imprisonment. In the following year, he made his feature film debut with a small part in Lawrence Kasdan's action/western "Silverado" (1985), starring featuring an ensemble cast including Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner and Danny Glover.

Following his big screen debut, Jenkins began working regularly. He co-starred as Bobby Pate in Ken Harrison's film adaptation of Horton Foote's play, "On Valentine's Day" (1986), starring Hallie Foote and William Converse-Roberts, and had supporting role in George Miller's Oscar-nominated film version of John Updike's 1984 novel, "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), alongside Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. He also reprised the role of Bobby Pate in Howard Cummings' "Courtship" (1987), another film adaptation of a Horton Foote play, and was featured in Richard Benjamin's drama/thriller film about a family of Communist spies living in America, "Little Nikita" (1988), opposite River Phoenix and Sidney Poitier.

In the new decade, Jenkins added to his resume with roles in Kathryn Bigelow's thriller/neo-noir film "Blue Steel" (1990; he played a lawyer), starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ron Silver and Clancy Brown, the CBS Golden Globe-nominated miniseries starring Halle Berry, "Queen" (1993), and the CBS special "The Boys Next Door" (1996; with Nathan Lane, Courtney B. Vance, Michael Jeter, Robert Sean Leonard and Tony Goldwyn), which was based on the play by Tom Griffin. He was also nominated an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance as the gay boyfriend of Josh Brolin's character in writer/director David O. Russell's comedy film, “Flirting with Disaster” (1996; also starring Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette and Téa Leoni).

After playing the parole officer in writer/director Tim Blake Nelson's atmospheric movie "Eye of God" (1997; with Martha Plimpton, Kevin Anderson, Hal Holbrook and Nick Stahl), Jenkins was cast as a detective in Scott Silver's action/thriller based on the television show of the same name, "The Mod Squad" (1999; starring Claire Danes, Giovanni Ribisi and Omar Epps), and had a supporting role in Michael Corrente's film adaptation of Peter Farrelly's 1988 novel, "Outside Providence" (1999; starring Shawn Hatosy, Amy Smart and Alec Baldwin). That same year, he also could be seen in Sydney Pollack's big screen version of Warren Adler's 1984 novel, "Random Hearts," starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas, and Scott Hicks' Oscar-nominated adaptation of David Guterson's novel, "Snow Falling on Cedars," starring Ethan Hawke and Youki Kudoh.

From 2001 to 2005, Jenkins played the recurring role of family patriarch Nathaniel Fisher Sr., owner of Fisher & Sons Funeral Home, in the acclaimed HBO drama series "Six Feet Under," which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Meanwhile, he played Heather Graham's stroke-suffering father in James B. Rogers' romantic comedy film "Say It Isn't So" (2001), and co-starred with with Tom Sizemore, Connor Price and Ving Rhames in the FX original movie "Sins of the Father" (2002), which was based on real events during the 1963 bombing of an African American church in Birmingham, Alabama.

In 2003, Jenkins appeared as Steve Martin's superior Shake in Shawn Levy's comedy film "Cheaper by the Dozen" (2003) and portrayed Catherine Zeta-Jones' lawyer Freddy Bender in the romantic comedy "Intolerable Cruelty" (2003), which also starred George Clooney. Afterwards, he played the distant sixty-year-old father of a fourteen-year-old boy (played by Emile Hirsch) trying to deal with the death of his mother in writer/director Michael Burke's dramatic film based on his 1998 short film “Fishbelly White,” “The Mudge Boy” (2003), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and had an uncredited role as Jean Smart's husband in David O Russell's comedy movie "I Heart Huckabees" (2004; starring Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg, Jude Law and Naomi Watts).

Jenkins was cast in Dean Parisot's remake of the 1977 comedy film, "Fun with Dick and Jane" (2005; starring Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni in the title roles), and acquired good critical notices as the blue collar mine worker father to Charlize Theron's character in Niki Caro's Academy Award-nominated film "North Country" (2005), a fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States. Also in that year, he played Jennifer Aniston's pleasant naive father in Rob Reiner's romantic drama comedy “Rumor Has It... “

Recently, Jenkins starred as a widowed college economics professor who is drifting through life rather aimlessly in writer/director Thomas McCarthy's drama/comedy film "The Visitor" (2007). He will soon be seen as an F.B.I. director, alongside Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner in an upcoming Peter Berg action/drama/thriller film "The Kingdom," which is slated to be released on September 28, 2007.

Jenkins is currently on set filming writer/director Sean Ellis' horror/thriller film titled "The Brøken," in which he co-stars with Lena Headey, and will share the screen with John Malkovich, George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt in the Coen brothers' upcoming dark comedy film, “Burn After Reading.”