Biography:

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, and director. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards. Costner's notable roles include Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Lt. John J. Dunbar in Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard, and Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel.

He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role as Devil Anse Hatfield in Hatfields & McCoys.

Costner was born in Lynwood, California and grew up in Compton, California. He is the youngest of three sons (the middle of whom died at birth). His mother, Sharon Rae (née Tedrick), was a welfare worker, and his father, William Costner, was an electrician and later utilities executive at Southern California Edison. Costner's patrilineal heritage originates with German immigrants to South Carolina in the 1700s; he also has English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and other German, ancestry. Costner was raised Baptist. He attended Cabrillo Middle School, Buena High School, and Villa Park High School. Costner was not academically inclined. Rather, he enjoyed sports, took piano lessons, wrote poetry, and sang in the First Baptist Choir. He has stated that a viewing of the film How the West Was Won at the age of seven had "formed" his childhood.

Spending his teenage years in various parts of California as his father's career progressed, Costner has described this as a period when he "lost a lot of confidence", having to make new friends often. Costner lived in Orange County, then in Visalia (Tulare County), attending Mt. Whitney High School, and then back to Ventura, graduating from Villa Park High School in 1973. He went on to earn a BA in marketing and finance from California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) in 1978.

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