Actor. Born on December 9, 1953, in Christopher, Illinois. Smooth, unconventional, balding leading man of the American stage and screen. Raised in Benton, Illinois where his grandmother was the publisher of the local newspaper and his father the head of the State Conservation Department, he lost a great deal of weight during his high school years to become slim ladies' man on the campus of Illinois State University. He began acting in school productions and in 1976, with a group of college friends, he became a founding member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Ensemble. After seven years with the group, he emerged into the New York limelight with an Obie Award-winning performance in the 1983 off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's "True West", which led to the plum role of Biff in the 1984 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" starring Dustin Hoffman. He made an equally impressive screen debut in 1984 in Robert Benton's "Places in the Heart", for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. A string of strong screen performances culminated in 1988 in his intricate portrayal of an aristocratic seductor in Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons", Malkovich, who has periodically returned to the stage as an actor and a director, was married to actress Glenne Headly from 1982 to 1990.
