Kevin Delaney Kline (born October 24, 1947) is an American actor. He is the recipient of an Academy Award and three Tony Awards. In addition, he has received nominations for two British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, Kline was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Kline began his career on stage in 1972 with The Acting Company. He has gone on to win three Tony Awards for his work on Broadway, winning Best Featured Actor in a Musical for the 1978 original production of On the Twentieth Century, Best Actor in a Musical for the 1981 revival of The Pirates of Penzance. In 2003, he starred as Falstaff in the Broadway production of Henry IV, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play. In 2017 he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter.
He made his film debut in romantic drama Sophie's Choice (1982). For his role in the comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Kline won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His other films include The Big Chill (1983), Silverado (1985), Cry Freedom (1987), Grand Canyon (1991), Dave (1993), French Kiss (1995), The Ice Storm (1997), In & Out (1997), Wild Wild West (1999), Life as a House (2001), De-Lovely (2004), The Conspirator (2010), My Old Lady (2014), and Beauty and the Beast (2017). Kline has voiced characters in the films The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Road to El Dorado (2000), The Tale of Despereaux (2008), and the animated comedy series Bob's Burgers (2011–present), for which he has earned a Primetime Emmy nomination. He has reprised his role in the latter's theatrical feature The Bob's Burgers Movie (2022).
Early life and education
Kline was born on October 24, 1947, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Margaret Agnes Kirk and Robert Joseph Kline (1909–1996). His father was a classical music lover and an amateur opera singer who owned and operated The Record Bar, a record store in St. Louis that opened in the early 1940s, and also sold toys during the 1960s and 1970s; his father's family also owned Kline's Inc., a department store chain. Kline has described his mother as the "dramatic theatrical character in our family". Kline's father was Jewish, while his mother was Catholic. Kline was raised in his mother's Catholic faith. He has an older sister, Kate, and two younger brothers, Alexander and Christopher.
He graduated from the Saint Louis Priory School in 1965. In 1997, the school named its new auditorium as the Kevin Kline Theater in his honor. Kline performed selections from Shakespeare as a benefit at the dedication.
He attended Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was a classmate of actor Jonathan Banks. He began studying composing and conducting music, but switched to a theater and speech major for his last two years, graduating in 1970. Kline remembers: "When I switched to the Theater Department, all I did was theater...I could barely make it to class because this was my passion." While an undergraduate, he was a co-founder of the Vest Pocket Players, an off-campus theatrical troupe.
