Movies

Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor. First gaining widespread attention in the late 1970s, some of his notable credits include Breaking Away (1979), The Right Stuff (1983), The Big Easy (1986), Innerspace (1987), Great Balls of Fire! (1989), Dragonheart (1996), The Parent Trap (1998), Frequency (2000), The Rookie (2002), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), In Good Company (2004), Yours, Mine & Ours (2005), and Vantage Point (2008).

His other film credits include Jaws 3-D (1983), Come See the Paradise (1990), Any Given Sunday (1999), Traffic (2000), The Alamo (2004), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), American Dreamz (2006), Battle for Terra (2007), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), Footloose (2011), Soul Surfer (2011), Beneath the Darkness (2012), Playing for Keeps (2012), Truth (2015), The Pretenders (2018), Midway (2019), The Intruder (2019), Blue Miracle (2021), American Underdog (2021), and Strange World (2022). For his role in Far from Heaven (2002), he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor among other accolades. The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Early life
Dennis William Quaid was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Juanita Bonnie Dale "Nita" (née Jordan), a real estate agent, and William Rudy Quaid (1923–1987), an electrician. He has English, Irish, Scots-Irish, and Cajun (French) ancestry. Through his father, he is a first cousin, twice removed, of cowboy performer Gene Autry. Quaid attended Paul W. Horn Elementary School in Bellaire and Pershing Middle School in Houston. He studied Mandarin and dance at Bellaire High School in Bellaire, Texas, and later in college, at the University of Houston, under drama coach Cecil Pickett, who had previously taught at Bellaire High and whose daughter is actress Cindy Pickett. Quaid was raised in the Baptist faith. He is the younger brother of actor Randy Quaid.