Brad Dourif

Actor Brad Dourif rose to prominence as the stuttering, frail Billy Bibbit in Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), and has gone on to play a variety of both tormented characters and spine-chilling evil ones. Dourif arrived in NYC after dropping out of college at age 19 and joined the Circle Repertory Company where he won his first notice as Stephen in the original company of "When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?" in 1972. Although he had appeared in a bit part in "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings" (1974), Dourif had his first role of consequence with "Cuckoo's Nest," for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. By the end of the 1970s, after turning down roles in "The Deer Hunter" (1978) and "Hair" (1979), he had settled into playing characters that were edgy and often mentally unbalanced like the chauffeur Tommy Ludlow in "The Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978) and the deranged preacher Hazel Motes in "Wise Blood" (1979).