John Heard

Passions

Vocation

Family

American actor, with a boyish appearance and personable manner, who won the 1976-77 Theatre World Award for his performance in the 1976 play "Streamers." Two years later Heard won the Obie Award for two separate off-Broadway performances. The experienced stage performer is probably best known for his portrayal as McCauley Culkin’s affable, but bullheaded, father in the hit comedies "Home Alone," 1990 and "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," 1992. In 1968, he graduated from Clark University in Worcester, MA. After an apprenticeship in Chicago’s free-form Organic Theatre, his first film role was that of an agitated and anxious correspondent for an underground newspaper in Joan Micklin Silver’s "Between the Lines." Primarily a supporting player, although occasionally cast as leading man, Heard broke into movies with a sizeable role in "First Love," 1977, and was listed as one of 12 "Promising New Actors of 1977" in John Willis’ Screen World, Vol. 29. Probably most effective in character roles, and particularly successful playing self-righteous, unctuous yuppies and menacing bureaucrats, 1979’s "Head Over Heels" saw him cast in the leading role as an obsessive ex-boyfriend opposite Mary Beth Hurt. He entered the mainstream with his role in the 1981-82 erotic thriller "Cat People," and portrayed an abrasive business rival to Tom Hank’s character in the hit movie "Big," 1988. Formerly married to actress Margot Kidder, they divorced in 1979. He has one son, John Matthew, with Melissa Leo, a former girlfriend. Leo was granted custody of their son after a court battle in 1994. In 1997 Heard was charged and convicted of telephone misuse and trespassing, while being acquitted of the more serious charges that he harassed Leo and assaulted her boyfriend, John Russell. Separate charges that he stalked Leo were dropped, as were those of invasion of privacy and trespassing. The case, which Heard said was "a father’s rights issue," and which apparently stemmed from visitation disputes, was described by the Baltimore District Court Judge as "a very emotional case and a very sad one." Link to Wikipedia biography