Jeffrey Bertan Cohen, JD (born June 25, 1974) is an American attorney and the founding partner of Cohen & Gardner LLP. In his youth, he was a child actor best remembered for appearing as Chunk in the 1985 Steven Spielberg production The Goonies.

Life and career[link]

Cohen was born Jeffrey Bertan McMahon in Los Angeles, California, and took his stage name from the maiden name of his mother, Elaine Cohen.^[1] Since the part of "Chunk" entailed a lot of mockery at Cohen's considerable girth, he took up high school football and has since lost a great deal of weight as an adult. Cohen was one of the kids describing words to the contestants on the 1982-83 CBS game show Child's Play, and during the summer of 1985 he appeared as a celebrity on Body Language. Cohen attended the University of California, Berkeley, earning a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business in 1996. While at UC Berkeley, Cohen was a resident assistant during the 1994-1995 academic year at Unit I's Putnam Hall and later on in Norton Hall. He became President of the Associated Students. His campaign posters featured a picture of himself from his Goonies days and the simple slogan "Chunk for president". He was also known for his energy at football games serving as the "Mic-Man" and performing the now-famous Truffle Shuffle on the sidelines to raise applause from the crowd. While at Berkeley, Jeff also was initiated as a brother into the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity.

After his time at Berkeley, Cohen studied at the UCLA School of Law and later became an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. In 2002, he co-founded the Cohen & Gardner firm in Beverly Hills.^[2][3] In the September 24, 2008 issue of Variety, Cohen was profiled in the Dealmakers Impact Report.^[2] Additionally, Cohen was named to The Hollywood Reporter's Next Generation: Hollywood's Top 35 Executives 35 and Under in their November 5 issue.^[4]

Cohen claimed in The Goonies DVD commentary track that every role he played as a child had him wearing either a Hawaiian shirt or a pair of plaid pants, and director Richard Donner had the brilliant idea of putting him in both for The Goonies.^[5] Before The Goonies started filming, Cohen contracted chicken pox. Afraid that they would re-cast the role, he told no one of his illness and showed up to work anyway. According to the commentary track on The Goonies DVD, you can see the chicken pox on Cohen's chest during the famous "Truffle Shuffle" sequence.^[5]

Cohen's sister, Eydie Faye, is a successful playwright and actress. In the final scene of The Goonies, when the families gather on the beach, Faye has a cameo as Chunk's sister. In another scene, Chunk tells the Fratellis that he once pushed his sister Eydie down the stairs and blamed it on the dog.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cohen Gardner LLP
• Jeff Cohen at the Internet Movie Database

Jeff Cohen may refer to:

• Jeff Cohen (basketball) (1939–1978), American professional basketball player
• Jeff Cohen (actor) (born 1974), attorney who was a child actor who appeared as Chunk in the 1985 Steven Spielberg production The Goonies
• Jeff Cohen (media critic), founder of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, a media watchdog group in the United States
• Jeff Cohen (playwright and theater director)
• Geoffrey Cohen, a pseudonym used by representatives of the activist group Jewdas

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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Robyn Cohen is an American actress best known for her role as the often topless script girl in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Cohen earned her B.F.A. in dance from the Juilliard School in 1998. After roles in several musicals on the East Coast, she moved to Los Angeles, California in search of film and television roles.

Once in L.A. she appeared in episodes of Angel and LAX. In addition to her role in The Life Aquatic, she was seen in Fool's Gold, a low-budget independent film starring James Franco, and in the 2006 screen adaptation of The Celestine Prophecy.

She has also continued her theatre work, playing the female lead in Modern Dance for Beginners at the Victory Theatre Center, and in the off-Broadway production of The Exonerated starring Jeff Goldblum. She also appeared in an Los Angeles Opera production of Rigoletto, staged at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. She played the Kit Kat Girl in a national touring company of a revival of Cabaret.

She worked again with Wes Anderson as a hamster in the 2005 Dasani water television commercials.

External links[link]

• Robyn Cohen at the Internet Movie Database
• Review of Juilliard Senior Graduation Performance of May 18, 1998, featuring Cohen
• The Road to Hollywood a February 2003 article from the Juilliard School website

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Sean Astin
Astin at UIUC, 2009
Born	Sean Patrick Duke (1971-02-25) February 25, 1971 (age 41) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Alma mater	UCLA
Occupation	Actor, director, producer, voice actor
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Christine Harrell (m. 1992) «start: (1992)»"Marriage: Christine Harrell to Sean Astin" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Sean_Astin)
Website
http://www.seanastin.com/

Sean Astin (born February 25, 1971) is an American film actor, director, voice artist, and producer best known for his film roles as Mikey Walsh in The Goonies, the title character of Rudy, and Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In television, he appeared as Lynn McGill in the fifth season of 24. Most recently, he provided the voice for the title character in Disney's Special Agent Oso. Astin also served as campaign manager for his friend, Democratic entertainment industry businessman Dan Adler in California's 36th congressional district special election, 2011.

Early life and education[link]

Astin was born Sean Patrick Duke in Santa Monica, California, the son of actress Patty Duke.^[1] At the time, it was reported that Desi Arnaz, Jr., was his biological father. In 1994, Astin discovered his father was Michael Tell, a music promoter and writer, and publisher of the newspaper The Las Vegas Israelite.^[2][3][4]

Tell's marriage to Patty Duke was annulled shortly before her marriage in 1972 to actor John Astin, who adopted Sean. In 1973, Duke gave birth to Astin's half-brother Mackenzie Astin, who also became an actor. Although Patty Duke and John Astin divorced in 1985, Sean Astin has written that he has always considered John his "real" father.

He attended the Crossroads High School for the Arts and master classes at the Stella Adler Conservatory in Los Angeles. Astin graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in History and English (American literature and culture). An alumnus of Los Angeles Valley College, he serves on the school's Board of Directors of the Patrons Association and the Arts Council.

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Astin's first acting role was in a 1981 television movie titled Please Don't Hit Me, Mom, in which he played a child with an abusive mother (portrayed by his real-life mother Patty Duke). He made his film debut at age 14 as Mikey in The Goonies (1985).

Following The Goonies, Astin appeared in several more films, including the Disney made-for-TV movie, The B.R.A.T. Patrol, opposite Nia Long, Tim Thomerson and Brian Keith; Like Father Like Son (1987); White Water Summer with Kevin Bacon (1987), The War of the Roses (1989); the World War II film Memphis Belle (1990); Toy Soldiers (1991); Encino Man (1992); and the college football biopic Rudy (1993), about the life-changing struggles and rewards of the titular character, Daniel Ruettiger.

In 1994, Astin directed and co-produced (with his wife, Christine Astin) the short film Kangaroo Court, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. Astin continued to appear in films throughout the 1990s, including the Showtime science fiction film Harrison Bergeron (1995), the Gulf War film Courage Under Fire (1996), and the Warren Beatty political satire Bulworth (1998).

[edit] The Lord of the Rings

In the early 2000s, Astin experienced a career breakthrough with his role as Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Along with the many awards bestowed upon the trilogy, particularly its final installment The Return of the King (winner of eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture), Astin received many award nominations for his own performance in Return of the King, taking home the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor and awards from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, the Seattle Film Critics, the Utah Film Critics Association, and the Phoenix Film Critics Society. As an ensemble, the Return of the King cast received awards from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Screen Actors Guild.

He and other cast members became very close and very good friends through the filming process. He became particularly good friends with Elijah Wood.

Astin's daughter, Alexandra, can be seen in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. She plays his onscreen daughter, Elanor Gamgee, that runs out to him as he returns from saying goodbye to Frodo and Gandalf.

While working on Lord of the Rings, Astin persuaded a number of fellow cast and crew members, including director Peter Jackson, to assist him in making his second short film, The Long and Short of It. The film takes place on a street in Wellington, New Zealand. The Long and Short of It premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and appears on the DVD for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, along with a "making of" video.

In 2004, Astin released There and Back Again (ISBN 0-312-33146-0), a memoir (co-written with Joe Layden) of his film career with emphasis on his experiences with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The title is derived from the subtitle of The Hobbit, by Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien; the title also appears in the film Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King.

[edit] Post-Lord of the Rings career

Since Lord of the Rings, Astin has continued to work in film and television. His film roles have included the Adam Sandler comedies 50 First Dates and Click.

In television, Astin guest-starred as Lynn McGill throughout the fifth season of the Fox drama 24. He also appeared in the made-for-TV films Hercules and The Colour of Magic and in episodes of Monk, Las Vegas, My Name is Earl (in which he parodied his 1993 film Rudy with co-stars Charles S. Dutton and Chelcie Ross), and Law & Order, among other shows. He directed a 2003 episode of the TV series Angel, titled "Soulless". He played the enigmatic Mr. Smith on the second season of the Showtime series Jeremiah.

Astin's career has also expanded to include voice-over roles. He narrated the American version of the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor, and voices the title character in the animated Disney Channel series Special Agent Oso.^[5] His other voice work includes Balto III: Wings of Change and the video game Kingdom Hearts, in the latter of which he provided the voice of Hercules, replacing actor Tate Donovan, who was unavailable but would return for Kingdom Hearts II.

In 2010, he joined the Stella Adler Los Angeles Theatre Collective acting company.^[6] He and his wife, Christine, are making a movie based on Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal-winning novel Number the Stars.^[7][8]

Astin portrays the role of Matthew in The Truth & Life Dramatized audio New Testament Bible, a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatized audio version of the New Testament, which uses the RSV-CE.

Personal life[link]

Astin married Christine Harrell on July 11, 1992. They have three daughters: Alexandra (born November 27, 1996), Elizabeth (born August 6, 2002), and Isabella (born July 22, 2005), all with the middle name Louise. His wife held the Miss Indiana Teen USA title in 1984.

Astin has a tattoo on his ankle of the word "nine" written with the Tengwar script, commemorating his Lord of the Rings involvement and his character's membership in the Fellowship of the Ring. Of the other Fellowship actors (Elijah Wood, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, and John Rhys-Davies), all have the same tattoo except Rhys-Davies.^[9]

During the 2004 United States presidential election, Astin backed Senator John Kerry and participated in Kerry's campaign rally in Portland, Oregon, as the opening speaker.^[10] In the 2008 presidential election, Astin lent his support to Senator Hillary Clinton and made multiple campaign appearances on her behalf, including joining Clinton's daughter Chelsea Clinton at some stops.^[11]

Astin is a vegetarian.^[12] He attended Catholic school and also practiced Buddhism for a time (his mother is Catholic and his biological father, Michael Tell, is Jewish).^[13]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sean Astin

• Sean Astin at the Internet Movie Database
• Sean Astin at AllRovi
• Official website

Josh Brolin
Brolin at Flaunt Magazine's 9th Anniversary Bash and Holiday Toy Drive, December 2007
Born	Josh James Brolin (1968-02-12) February 12, 1968 (age 44) California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, stock trader
Years active	1985–present
Spouse	Alice Adair (1988–1992; divorced) Diane Lane (2004–present)
Parents	James Brolin Jane Cameron Agee

Josh James Brolin (pronounced /ˈbroʊlɨn/; born February 12, 1968)^[1] is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.

Early life[link]

Brolin was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Jane Cameron Agee, a wildlife activist who was a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, and actor James Brolin.^[2][3] Brolin was raised on a California ranch with little exposure to his father's acting career.^[4] His parents divorced when he was 16 and his stepmother is singer/actress Barbra Streisand. He became interested in acting after taking an improv acting class in high school.^[4]

Acting career[link]

Brolin started his career in TV movies and guest spots on TV shows before getting a more notable role as Brand Walsh in the Richard Donner-directed movie The Goonies (1985).^[4] He was considered for the role of Tom Hanson in the series 21 Jump Street; he and Johnny Depp were the finalists for the role, and at that time the two became close and remained friends even after the role was ultimately awarded to Depp.^[5][6] Brolin guest-starred in an episode of the show in its first season.^[7]

Brolin implied that he turned away from film acting for years after the premiere of his second film, Thrashin', where he witnessed what he called "horrendous" acting on his part.^[8] For several years, he appeared in stage roles in Rochester, New York, often alongside mentor and friend Anthony Zerbe. One of Brolin's more prominent roles early in his career was that of James "Wild Bill" Hickok in the ABC western TV series The Young Riders, which lasted three seasons (1989–92).^[4] Two other TV series he was involved in include the Aaron Spelling production Winnetka Road (1994) and Mister Sterling (2003), both of which were cancelled after a few episodes.

Brolin's extensive film work consists of many villainous roles in recent films including Planet Terror (one of two feature-length segments of the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez collaboration Grindhouse), Gus van Sant's Milk, American Gangster, and Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.^[4] He also played the lead role in the Coen brothers' Academy Award-winning film No Country for Old Men.

Brolin also starred in another Oliver Stone film in 2008 called W., a biopic about key events in the life of President George W. Bush.^[4][9] Stone pursued an initially hesitant Brolin for the role. He said of his decision to cast Brolin in the leading role:^[10]

It always seemed to me that he was the right person. Although classically handsome, I think he would consider himself a character actor first and foremost, and it was in this context that I thought of him as W. Josh certainly has star appeal and could be a leading man, but I don’t think he necessarily wants to be that. I think he really enjoys disappearing into a character

Brolin at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival

Brolin received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk as city supervisor Dan White, who assassinated San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.^[11] He made news by wearing a White Knot to the Academy Awards ceremony to demonstrate solidarity with the marriage equality movement.^[12] Brolin told an interviewer that costar Sean Penn, who portrayed Milk, decided to dispel any nerves the actors had about playing gay men by grabbing the bull by the horns. At the first cast dinner, which included castmates James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna, Brolin said, "[Penn] walked right up and grabbed me and planted a huge one right on my lips."^[10] Brolin has received critical acclaim for his performance and, in addition to his Oscar nomination, received NYFCC and NBR Awards for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. He portrayed Jonah Hex in the film of the same name.^[13]

Brolin played a younger Agent K in Men in Black 3 released in May 2012.^[14][15]

Writing and directing[link]

Brolin at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival (2011)

In 2009, Brolin executive produced and performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.^[16]

Brolin wrote and directed the short film X, as his directorial debut. The film, about an inmate who escapes prison to reunite with his daughter and search for her murdered mother, was the opening film at the first annual Union City International Film Festival in Union City, New Jersey in December 2010.^[17][18][19]

Other activities[link]

Brolin has hosted Saturday Night Live twice; once in October 2008, and again in April 2012.

Personal life[link]

Marriages and family[link]

Brolin was married to actress Alice Adair from 1988 to 1992;^[20] they have two children, Trevor Mansur (born June 1988) and Eden (born 1992). He was engaged to actress Minnie Driver for six months.^[20] He has been married to actress Diane Lane since August 15, 2004.^[21]

Legal issues[link]

On December 20, 2004, Brolin's wife, Diane Lane called the police after an altercation with Brolin and he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Lane declined to press charges and the couple's spokesperson characterized the incident as a misunderstanding.^[22]

On July 12, 2008, Brolin was arrested, along with actor Jeffrey Wright and five other crew members of W., after an altercation at the Stray Cat Bar in Shreveport, Louisiana. Brolin was released after posting a cash bond of US$334.^[23][24] When talking of his arrest, Brolin said to a reporter, "It was nice to be in jail knowing that I hadn’t done anything wrong. And it was maddening to be in jail knowing that I hadn’t done anything wrong."^[10] Charges against all seven men were later dropped by Shreveport prosecutors.^[25]

Business interests[link]

When he is not acting, Brolin is an active stock trader and is co-founder of the site MarketProbability.com.^[26]

The site has since shut down.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Josh Brolin at the Internet Movie Database
• Josh Brolin at AllRovi
• The People Speak at the Internet Movie Database
• 'The People Speak' Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2009