Kevin Kline became established as one of the most versatile and talented stage actors of his generation in the 1970s and 80s. Proving equally at home in musical comedy, contemporary drama and the classics, he has delighted and thrilled New York audiences with his performances. His feature career, despite winning an Oscar, has proven more dicey. Kline has demonstrated his capabilities and invoked comparisons with such diverse screen icons as Errol Flynn and Laurence Olivier, yet he has also acquired a reputation for discretion and selectivity (he is jokingly referred to as 'Kevin Decline'), creating a body of work that, while impressive, has not propelled him to the front ranks of stardom.
A charismatic leading man with rakish dark matinee idol looks, Kline was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and began acting in school plays. He studied composing and conducting at Indiana University for two years before finally switching to drama. While an undergraduate, Kline co-founded a theater troupe, The Vest Pocket Players, that specialized in topical satirical revues. Upon graduation, he headed to New York City and landed bit roles in the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of "Henry VI, Parts I and II" and "Richard III" before being accepted into the newly established drama division of Juilliard, founded by John Houseman. In 1972, Kline and other members of the first graduating class (including Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers) became founding members of The Acting Company. For the next several years, the troupe traveled throughout the USA appearing in works ranging from "The School for Scandal" to "Three Sisters" to "Measure for Measure.” Kline made his Broadway debut with The Acting Company in "Scapin" in 1973 and two years later originated his first musical role, Jamie Lockhart, in "The Robber Bridegroom.”
While understudying Raul Julia's MacHeath in the acclaimed New York Shakespeare Festival revival of "The Threepenny Opera,” he was cast in the supporting role of egocentric movie star Bruce Granit in "On the Twentieth Century.” Kline's physical agility, comic flourishes and strong singing nearly stole the show and earned him a 1978 Featured Actor Tony Award. He followed with a dramatic turn in Michael Weller's "Loose Ends" (1979), opposite Christine Lahti. In 1980-81, Kline delighted audiences as the swashbuckling Pirate King in an irreverent staging of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance,” for which he earned a second Tony Award. He has subsequently distinguished himself in Shakespearean roles ranging from a dastardly "Richard III" (1983) to a dashing "Henry V" (1984) to a sly Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1988) to two outings as the Melancholy Dane in "Hamlet" (1986 and 1990; he also directed the latter). He co-starred with Raul Julia and Glenne Headley in a revival of Shaw's "Arms and the Man" (1985), directed by John Malkovich.
Kline made an impressive screen debut as a charismatic schizophrenic opposite Streep in "Sophie's Choice" (1982). Over the next several decades, he has etched several memorable characters, including the definitive post-radical, young suburban professional in Lawrence Kasdan's "The Big Chill" (1983), a revisionist Western hero in Kasdan's "Silverado" (1985) and an Oscar-winning turn as perhaps the most stupid hit man ever in "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988). Teamed with Sally Field, Kline shone as a second-rate "serious" actor reduced to starring on daytime TV in "Soapdish" (1991) and then offered an effective cameo as Douglas Fairbanks in the 1992 Richard Attenborough-directed biopic, "Chaplin.” He proved effective in the dual roles of the US President and his doppelganger in the excellent comedy "Dave" (1993). While "Fierce Creatures" (1997) reunited Kline with his "Fish Called Wanda" co-stars and offered another chance to play dual characters, an Australian media baron and his scheming American son, the film was uneven and lacked the comic spark that made "Wanda" a success. Kline fared better as a Midwestern high school teacher who is "outed" as gay by a former student accepting a movie award in the box-office hit "In & Out" and as a cheating husband facing the changing times in 1973 in the superlative drama "The Ice Storm" (both 1997). Though he was not in a film for all of 1998, Kline was named Man of the Year by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club.
Through the vagaries of working in film, the actor managed to have high profile roles in two major 1999 releases. In Michael Hoffman's restaging of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream,” Kline very nearly stole the film as the comical Bottom, while in Barry Sonnenfeld's version of the 60s TV series "Wild Wild West", he stepped into the late Ross Martin's shoes as the master of disguise Artemus Gordon alongside Will Smith (as Jim West) but was overshadowed by the overblown production values and done in by the poor script. 2001 once again saw Kline in two different projects: in "The Anniversary Party,” he played a slightly hammy, aging actor married to a former actress, while in "Life as a House", the actor offered an excellent performance as a dying man struggling to reach his disaffected teenage son. In 2002, Kline had a small but meaningful role in the surprise comedy hit "Orange County" and starred as a professor in the feature drama "The Emperor's Club," a variation on the "Dead Poets Society" formula. He turned in an extremely winning performance as the elegant, complicated songwriter Cole Porter in the biopic "De-Lovely" (2004), which focused on the bisexual composer's relationship with his devoted wife and muse (Ashley Judd).
Despite these fine portrayals, there has been something curiously lacking in Kline's film career. On stage, he can be dynamic and fluid, while on screen he sometimes appears muted and constrained (e.g., "The January Man" 1989; "Consenting Adults" 1992). While demonstrating a facility with comic accents (i.e., Kasdan's "I Love You to Death" 1990 and "French Kiss" 1995), the overall effect calls attention to itself. With few exceptions (notably Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" and Sigourney Weaver in both "Dave" and "The Ice Storm"), Kline does not strike romantic sparks with his leading ladies in the way he has on stage. In fact, one of his best romantic roles was as Pheobus in Disney's animated "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1996). On stage, Kline has earned his most positive reviews, particularly for the lead in Anton Chekhov’s “Ivanov” in 1997, performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center. In 2000, he gave a strong performance as the obsessive-compulsive writer, Trigorin, in another of Chekhov’s major plays, “The Seagull,” which starred Meryl Streep, Jonathan Goodman, Natalie Portman, and was directed by Mike Nichols. He then gave a bravura—though understated—performance as the plump Jack Falstaff in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, part 1” in 2003.
After making a cameo appearance in Martin Short’s mediocre “Jiminy Glick in LaLaWood” (2005), a would-be spoof on Hollywood that starred Short as an annoying, third-rate entertainment reporter trying to boost his career, Kline took on the role of Chief Dreyfus in “The Pink Panther” (2006), starring Steve Martin as the bumbling inspector once essayed brilliantly by Peter Sellers. In early 2006, he was honored with the dubious distinction of having an award named after him—the Kevin Kline Award™ which recognized outstanding achievement in theater throughout the Greater St. Louis area. The 1st Annual Kevin Kline Awards were held on March 20, 2006 at the newly revamped Robert’s Orpheum Theatre with a typically jovial Kline was on hand to open the ceremony. Meanwhile, he joined the ensemble cast for Robert Altman’s fictional take on Garrison Keillor’s radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion” (2006), playing an inept private detective trying to save the show—which is about to be canceled—from disaster. He then returned to Shakespeare for the screen, playing the hopelessly melancholy Jacques in “As You Like It” (lensed 2005).