John Getz (born October 15, 1946) is an American character actor. After starting his acting career on stage, he has appeared in numerous television series and films, most notably Blood Simple, The Fly, and The Social Network.
Early life
Getz, one of four children, was born in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up in the Mississippi River Valley.[2] He is the son of William and Kay Getz.[3] His father operated a heavy-machine company, and his mother's family worked in construction.[4]
He was raised in Moline, Illinois,[5] and attended Moline High School, where he was a member of the swimming team. As a student at the University of Puget Sound, he participated in theater to avoid being on the university's swimming team.[3] He attended the University of Iowa intending to participate in its Writers Workshop. He planned to write and teach, but involvement with the university's theater department turned his interest to acting.[5]
Career
Immediately after his college experience Getz began working with the American Conservatory Theater.[5] He performed for a year with a touring company, after which he was one the founders of a theater company in Napa Valley. After moving to New York he performed in plays in East Village and was an understudy for productions in Lincoln Center's Shakespeare Festival.[3]
Getz appeared in The Happy Hooker (1975) and followed up with several other roles before starring in the Coen Brothers' neo-noir thriller Blood Simple (1984). He played the doomed lover of a married woman (Frances McDormand) who woefully misinterprets his increasingly complex circumstances.
In 1985, he co-starred in the unsuccessful police drama MacGruder and Loud. The pilot was given the post-Super Bowl time slot, contributing to its strong debut in the ratings. However, ABC rescheduled it repeatedly and finally relegated it to the "graveyard slot",[citation needed] 10:00pm ET, Monday night.
Getz appeared in two different shows with the name "Maggie" in the title: 1984's Maggie Briggs, where he appeared as newspaper editor Geoff Bennett, and 1998's Maggie as the title character's husband, Dr. Arthur Day.
In 2007, he had a role in David Fincher's film Zodiac. Also in 2007, he appeared in Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's documentary film Nanking as George Ashmore Fitch, head of the local YMCA and administrative director of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. Getz also had a role in Fincher's film The Social Network (2010), about the founding of Facebook. He appeared in the suspense thriller Elevator as a Wall Street executive trapped in an elevator with a group of strangers, one of whom has a bomb. Written and produced by Marc Rosenberg and directed by Stig Svendsen, Elevator was released in July 2012. He appeared in Trumbo (2015) as director Sam Wood.
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