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James Bridges, (París, Arkansas, Estats Units, nascut el 3 de febrer de 1936, va morir el 6 de juny de 1993 a Los Angeles, Califòrnia), actor, guionista i director nord-americà més conegut per The China Syndrome (1979) i Urban Cowboy (1980).
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Escola de cinema: fet o ficció?
Cap pel·lícula silenciosa ha guanyat mai un Oscar.
Bridges va començar la seva carrera en l'entreteniment com a actor, i els primers crèdits van incloure parts de bits en diversos programes de televisió i un paper protagonista com Tarzan a la pel·lícula subterrània d'Andy Warhol, Tarzan i Jane Regain.
Gènere de (1964). Tot i això, finalment es va centrar en treballar darrere de la càmera. Va escriure el ben rebut vehicle Marlon Brando The Appaloosa (1966), així com nombrosos episodis de The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. El 1970 Bridges va guiar i dirigir The Baby Maker, un drama de baix pressupost sobre una parella sense fills que contracta un hippie (interpretat per Barbara Hershey) per actuar com a mare subrogada, amb resultats inesperats.
Més àmpliament es va veure The Paper Chase (1973), un drama sobre un estudiant de primer any de la Harvard Law School (Timothy Bottoms) que lluita per sobreviure als rigoros de la seva tasca acadèmica amb l'exigent professor Kingsfield (John Houseman, que va guanyar un premi de l'Acadèmia pel seu paper)) fent cortesia a la filla de lliure esperit del professor (Lindsay Wagner). L’adaptació de Bridges de la novel·la font també va ser nominada a l’Oscar, i la popular pel·lícula es va adaptar posteriorment a una exitosa sèrie de televisió.
Bridges next wrote and directed 9/30/55 (1978; also known as September 30, 1955), a dramatization of a fan (Richard Thomas) struggling to come to grips with the death of idol James Dean in 1955. However, it was the suspenseful The China Syndrome (1979) that became Bridges’s first breakout hit. Jane Fonda played a television reporter who stumbles onto a cover-up at a nuclear power plant that nearly suffered a meltdown, and Jack Lemmon portrayed the engineer who blows the whistle on his criminally negligent superiors. Both actors were Oscar-nominated, as was Bridges for cowriting the prescient original screenplay. The film received an enormous boost when, a few weeks after it opened, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in Pennsylvania.
Bridges also scored big with Urban Cowboy (1980), a formulaic but entertaining story about a young Texas construction worker (John Travolta) who lets his marriage to independent Sissy (Debra Winger) disintegrate while he struggles to be accepted in the world of Gilley’s, the famed Houston honky-tonk, with its mechanical bull and competitive dance floors. Cowritten by Bridges, Urban Cowboy was a box office hit and spawned a best-selling sound track. Bridges next wrote the existential murder mystery Mike’s Murder for his longtime friend Winger, but the studio rejected the cut he delivered in 1982, and the film remained on the shelf until 1984, when a much-edited version was released to critical and commercial failure.
Bridges’s next film, Perfect (1985), centred on the new subculture of health clubs. It starred Travolta as a bright but unscrupulous Rolling Stone reporter on the trail of a story and Jamie Lee Curtis as the club instructor he first exploits, then falls in love with. Perfect, which was coscripted by Bridges, was widely panned and failed to find an audience. In 1988 he helmed his last film, Bright Lights, Big City, an intelligent but curiously flat adaptation of the Jay McInerney best seller about the club-and-cocaine scene in 1980s New York City. Two years later Clint Eastwood directed White Hunter, Black Heart, which was based on a script cowritten by Bridges. Diagnosed with cancer, Bridges died in 1993. In 1999 the main screening venue of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media was renamed the James Bridges Theater.
