Brendan's Biography
Born: December 3rd, 1968 Birth Stone: Blue Topaz Parents: Peter J. & Carol G Fraser City: Indianapolis, Indiana, USA Siblings: Three older brothers, Regan , Sean Kevin Eyes: Blue
Height: 6'3" Married to: Afton Smith, September 27th, 1998 Brendan Fraser was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 3rd, 1968, to Peter and Carol Fraser and is a dual Canadian-American citizen. His father is a retired Canadian Tourism Commission official and his mother is a sales counsellor. As a child, Fraser and his three older brothers, Kevin, Sean, and Regan, moved about every two or three years due to their father's job, living in cities around Canada, the United States, and Europe. Some stops included Amsterdam, London, Ottawa, Cincinnati, and Detroit.
He attended high school at Upper Canada College Preparatory School in Toronto then moved back to Seattle to study drama at the Cornish College of the Arts, where he received his bachelor's degree in fine arts. Soon, he was landing parts with the local Theatre and planned to pursue a master of fine arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
Before he made it to graduate school, Fraser landed a one-line role in a Hollywood film. That movie never hit the theatre, but he managed to make a good impression and continued to go on auditions. Fraser never waited tables or parked cars; he went straight to the screen. He soon snagged a role playing " Sailor No.1 " in the Vietnam-era drama Dogfight, in 1991, with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. Through this project, he met a casting agent. Fraser then made two television movies that year and soon won a major role of Link in Encino Man in 1992. Even though Encino Man was roundly panned, it established Fraser's place as a new Hollywood hunk. That was the last of Uni for Fraser.
After Encino Man, Fraser really turned heads as the lead in the 1992 picture School Ties, one of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's early movies. In it, he played David Green, a Jewish boy who conceals his ethnicity and fellow students at a prep school in the 1950's. Next he reprised the character of Link in the Pauley Shore duds, Son In Law, 1993, and In the Army Now, 1994. He continued to run the gamut of roles, playing another preppie part in With Honors, 1994. In that project, his character is a Harvard student who befriends a homeless man. That same year, he also played one of the three rocker dudes who try to commandeered a radio station Airheads.
Fraser was outstanding in the The Scout, co-starring Albert Brooks. For this film, at the age of 25, he commanded a reported 1.5 million salary. Fraser was impressive once again in The Passion of Darkly Noon, playing an orphan who tries to balance his religious beliefs with his lust for a woman (Ashley Judd). This allowed him to display his range even further. His next project, Mrs. Winterbourne, in which Fraser played a set of twins, fare poorly with critics and audiences, but he was singled out for praise.
Fraser's next big project was anything but a dark, however, as he tackled the dim yet lovable title character in
George of the Jungle, based on the animated cartoon from the 1960's. " I've always been a fan of Tarzan films, " Fraser had to go on a diet and spend six months working out. This Brought Fraser's Image to a sex symbol.Continuing to avoid typecasting, Fraser also played a gay opera director in a 1997 cable movie, The Twilight of the Gold's, and was also cast as the romantic lead in Still Breathing, for which he earned a Best Actor or award at the 1997 Seattle International Film Festival. In 1998, he showed up in the highly lauded Gods and Monsters, opposite respected British Shakespearean actor Ian McKellen.
In early 1999 Fraser appeared in Blast from the Past, in which he emerges in the 1990's after dwelling in a bomb shelter with his odd parents since 1962. Later that year, he had a smash hit with The Mummy, as part of a team of archaeologists that unearth a malevolent ancient Egyptian body.
Although many critics were not appreciative of The Mummy, others dubbed Fraser as the next Harrison Ford due to his swashbuckling leading man antics, The Mummy drew $44.6 million in its first weekend, Fraser's salary was boosted to an estimated $10 million per film. Also in 1999, Fraser landed in another real-life cartoon role as the lead in Dudley Do-Right an appropriate part, considering that his great-great-grandfather was a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman in the late 19th century.
Fraser is a stocky 6 ft., 3 in. tall with dark brown hair. Most interviewers note his unassuming, polite manner, almost to the point of shyness. He met fellow actor Afton Smith at Winona Ryder's Fourth of July barbecue in 1993, and they married on September 27th, 1998, after a romantic yet bungled proposal on the river Seine in Paris. Too shy to ask her outright, he popped the question in a creative way: He secretly pinned a note that read, " Will you marry me, Afton? " inside his jacket and then set a Polaroid camera on the edge of the bridge with a timer to capture a picture of the two of them as he flashed open his coat. Once the image developed, though, the sign was too small to read. Afton asked if it was a price tag, and opened Fraser's coat to check at which time she saw the sign. " I was at such a clumsy clodhopper I dropped something, " he related to Jan Stuart in Newsday. " I figured [since] I was already on bended knee I might as well say in the words and come out with the ring. She wept. I wept." Fraser and his wife have a contemporary home in Los Angeles, and he remains an avid snapshot taker with his collection of vintage Polaroids.
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