Eric Anthony Roberts (born on April 18, 1956, in Biloxi, Mississippi) is an Academy Award-nominated American film and stage actor. He was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, attended Grady High School, and is the older brother of actresses Lisa Roberts Gillan and Julia Roberts as well as the father of actress Emma Roberts and stepfather of singer/songwriter Keaton Simons. Roberts also has a half sister named Nancy Motes who was born in 1976 from his mother's second marriage.

Awards

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for his role as the escaped convict Buck in the film Runaway Train. In 1987, he won the Theatre World Award for his Broadway debut performance in Burn This.

Roles

His other starring roles include King of the Gypsies (1978), Star 80 (1983), Raggedy Man, The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), The Coca-Cola Kid (1985), Rude Awakening (1988), Best of the Best (1989), By the Sword (1991), The Specialist (1994), The Immortals (1995), La Cucaracha (1998), Purgatory (1999), and Con Games (2001). In 1996, he appeared in the Doctor Who TV movie in the role of the Master. He also appears in the 2000 film Race Against Time as a father who sells his organs to pay for hospital treatment for his son and in the 2003 film Spun as "The Man" alongside Mickey Rourke and Jason Schwartzmann. He also performed the voice of Dark Danny in Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom. He also made a cameo appearance in The Cable Guy.

Roberts recently starred in Royal Kill, a psychological thriller that also stars Pat Morita, Lalaine, and Gail Kim and is directed by Babar Ahmed.

Roberts appeared as a panelist on the television game show Hollywood Squares. Most recently, Roberts has co-starred on the ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect.

In 2006, Roberts appeared in the film A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. In the same year, he was also guest starred on The L Word as Shane McCutcheon's father, Gabriel.

He also appeared in the 2007 action film DOA: Dead or Alive.

Roberts appeared in The Killers' music video for their song "Mr. Brightside" as well as in the music videos for Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" and "It's Like That". In 2006, he appeared in the video for Akon's "Smack That", featuring Eminem. And in 2007, he appeared in the video for Godhead's "Hey You".

He appeared in an episode of CSI: Miami as Ken Kramer, a murderer on death row convicted of killing a young couple. Another notable TV appearance was the episode "Victims" of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit where he played Sam Winfield, a former cop turned vigilante community activist.

In early January 2007, Roberts starred in the two-part mini-series Pandemic as the mayor of Los Angeles.

Roberts voiced the Superman villain Mongul in the animated series Justice League and reprised his role in Justice League Unlimited in the episode "For the Man Who Has Everything"

He has recently joined the cast of Heroes as Thompson, an associate of Mr. "Horn-Rimmed Glasses" Bennet.

Roberts has joined the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, as Sal Maroni, an organized crime boss.

Satire/spoofs

An episode of the satiric cartoon series South Park featured Roberts as a star in a re-enactment of America's Most Wanted. He plays the genetically engineered half-man, half-monkey sidekick of the character Mephisto, where he overacts his part. During the re-enactment's taping, a snowstorm forces a group of characters to resort to cannibalism. Roberts is the first casualty because, as the mayor of South Park puts it, "No one gives a shit about Eric Roberts."

He was also name-checked in an episode of Seinfeld; after giving away the ending of the film, Kramer tells George that Roberts' performance as the husband in the film The Other Side of Darkness was "unforgettable."

He was portrayed as a clay figure on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch where he fought alongside his sister, Julia, against Donny and Marie Osmond.

Roberts was parodied in the web cartoon series College University, participating in a martial arts competition for washed-up action stars. He never got to compete, though, as the Transformer Optimus Prime knocked him out and stole his name tag. It should be noted that although in writing he was dubbed Eric Roberts, throughout the entire episode everybody referred to him as "Julia Roberts' Brother." The cartoon can be viewed at College University Character Bios.

Also, SFX when listing previous Masters in Doctor Who, put in Roberts' category: "Out-acted by a CGI snake in the same production."

Personal life

Roberts had his daughter Emma Roberts on February 10, 1991 with his then-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham. The relationship ended. Then, he married Eliza Garrett in 1992. He was arrested for allegedly shoving his wife into the wall in a domestic dispute in 1995, but his wife later refused to press charges. His daughter Emma has joined her father and aunts in the acting business. She has a starring role on the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous and has appeared in the films Blow (2001), Aquamarine (2006) and starred in Nancy Drew (2007) as the title character.

On January 12, 2001, Roberts visited The Howard Stern Radio Show with his wife during a segment called "The Gossip Game" with Mike Walker of the National Enquirer on the telephone and shared a bit of personal information. He confirmed that he and his more famous sister Julia Roberts were estranged for several years. The source of the estrangment had been Eric's past drug abuse, and Julia's siding with his ex-girlfriend over the custody battle over Emma Roberts. In 2004, he told People magazine, that he and Julia reconciled when he went to visit her in the hospital after she gave birth to twins.

External links

• Eric Roberts at the Internet Movie Database

References