Bruce Allen Davison (born June 28, 1946) is an American actor and director. He is well known for his starring role as Willard Stiles in the cult horror film Willard (1971) and his Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning performance in Longtime Companion (1989), and as Thomas Semmes in the HBO film Vendetta. He featured in the X-Men film franchise – through X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003) – as antagonist Robert Kelly.
In the 2010s, Davison appeared in Fred Schepisi's Words and Pictures (2013), had a recurring role on The Fosters (2015–2016) and shares the screen with Miles Teller and Anna Kendrick in Get a Job (2016).
Early life
Davison was born in 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He was raised by his mother and spent weekends with his father.
He graduated in 1964 from Marple Newtown Senior High School, entered Penn State as an art major, and then stumbled into acting when he accompanied a friend to an audition. He attended New York University's acting program, graduating in 1969.
Career
Davison made his Broadway debut in Tiger at the Gates in 1968. He also appeared as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, and starred in The Glass Menagerie with Jessica Tandy. Davison was one of a quartet of newcomers, including Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, and Catherine Burns when he made his film debut in Last Summer in 1969. In 1970, he played opposite Kim Darby in The Strawberry Statement, a film about peaceful student protest and its violent outcome. A year later he portrayed the title role in the 1971 version of Willard, based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks. He also appeared in Ulzana's Raid, Peege, Mame, Mother, Jugs & Speed, Short Eyes, The Lathe of Heaven and Six Degrees of Separation.
Davison was an uncredited extra in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He recalled, "Steven Spielberg was a great friend, although I never got to work with him, except for playing an extra in Close Encounters of the Third Kind because we were friends. I got off the mothership as one of the pilots."
Davison has worked extensively in television. In 1973, he played the brother of a crippled Natalie Wood in the made-for-TV movie The Affair on ABC. In 1978, Davison appeared as Dean Torrence with Richard Hatch in the biopic Deadman's Curve (the story of 1960s pop duo Jan & Dean). The same year, he played the title role in the television film adaptation Summer of My German Soldier.
In 1981, he had the lead role in The Wave based on real events, starring as a history teacher who had conducted an experiment in Nazi philosophy on his own students.
Davison also starred in Tales from the Darkside (Season 1, Episode 8) and played the role of the father in the short-lived Harry and the Hendersons TV series.
In 1983, Davison was cast by Joseph Papp in the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival production of King Richard III. Additional Off-Broadway credits include Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour and Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive. He also played the role of Ruby in the 1985 comedy Spies Like Us, starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase.
In 1990, he portrayed a homosexual man whose lover is dying of AIDS in Longtime Companion. The role earned Davison a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture. He concluded his Golden Globe acceptance speech with the hope that humankind would devote as much effort to the war on AIDS as its wars against each other. Davison appeared in other films addressing AIDS: In 1995's The Cure, he portrayed a physician sought by a young boy with AIDS in search of medical help. In 1996, Davison appeared in the film It's My Party, which chronicled the true events of a man dying with AIDS who decides to hold a farewell party for family and friends before taking his own life. Davison is a spokesperson for many AIDS-related groups and is a board member of the industry AIDS organization Hollywood Supports.
In Los Angeles, Davison has appeared on stage in Streamers and The Normal Heart, winning the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and Drama-Logue Award for his performances. Other theatre credits include The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (directed by Henry Fonda) and a stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.