Eric Roberts

Eric Anthony Roberts was born on April 18, 1956, in Biloxi, Mississippi, to Betty Lou Bredemus and Walter Grady Roberts, actors and playwrights who met while touring with a production of George Washington Slept Here for the armed forces. In 1963, his parents co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta's Midtown neighborhood and operated a children's acting school in Decatur, Georgia. His father later worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman, and his mother became a church secretary and real estate agent. Roberts's younger siblings, Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors; he and Julia were estranged until 2004. His parents divorced in 1972, after which Roberts remained with his father in Atlanta until his father's death from cancer in March 1977.

Roberts began his acting career in 1974 with an appearance on the soap opera How to Survive a Marriage. He subsequently originated the role of Ted Bancroft on the NBC daytime soap opera Another World, appearing from February 14 to June 17, 1977. His film debut came with a leading role in King of the Gypsies (1978), which earned him his first Golden Globe Award nomination. A second Golden Globe nomination followed for his portrayal of Paul Snider in Bob Fosse's Star 80 (1983). His performance as escaped convict Buck McGeehy in Runaway Train (1985) brought him a third Golden Globe nomination as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award that year given to Don Ameche for Cocoon.

In 1987, Roberts made his Broadway debut in Burn This, a performance that earned him the Theatre World Award in 1988. Additional film credits from this period include Raggedy Man (1981), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), The Coca-Cola Kid (1985), Nobody's Fool (1986), and Best of the Best (1989).

On television, Roberts played the Master in the 1996 Doctor Who television film, making him the only non-British actor to take on that role; he later reprised it for the Big Finish audio range. That same year he co-starred in the miniseries In Cold Blood as Perry Smith, a role that earned him a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film. His work on the sitcom Less than Perfect (2002–2005) brought him a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to appear in recurring roles on the NBC drama Heroes (2007–2010), the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless (2010–2011), the legal drama Suits (2014–2019), and the HBO series The Righteous Gemstones (2022).

Among Roberts's many film appearances are The Ambulance (1990), Final Analysis (1992), The Specialist (1994), The Cable Guy (1996), Cecil B. Demented (2000), National Security (2003), A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), in which he played Gotham City mob boss Sal Maroni, The Expendables (2010), Lovelace (2013), Inherent Vice (2014), and Babylon (2022). Over the course of his career Roberts has accumulated more than 700 screen credits, appearing in 74 films in 2017 alone.