James Woods

As if of royal birth, James Howard Woods is a man of magnificent pedigree, hailing from a noble family of Irish, English, and German descent. Born in Vernal, Utah on April 18, 1947, he was the son of Gail Peyton Woods, a U.S. Army intelligence officer, who sadly passed away in his childhood. His mother, Martha A. Smith and his stepfather, Thomas E. Dixon, raised him in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he graduated near the top of his class from Pilgrim High School in 1965. He was then granted a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though he dropped out during his sophomore year in 1967 to pursue his aspirations on the stage in New York City. Woods' talent was soon noticed, and he was offered roles in All the Way Home (1971), The Way We Were (1973), and The Choirboys (1977). However, it was his cold-blooded portrayal of Lester Diamond in the 1995 classic Casino, directed by the great Martin Scorsese, that catapulted him to fame.