Relic Man

Background:

"Temptation is impossible for me to resist. Come on. This is Hollywood. It's in the job description." Tom Sizemore

Italian-American actor Tom Sizemore was first noticed while portraying Sgt. Vinnie Ventresca on the ABC series “China Beach” (1989-1990). On the wide screen, he could be seen in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Relic (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), HBO's Witness Protection (1999), Red Planet (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), Dreamcatcher (2003) and Paparazzi (2004). His upcoming films include Flyboys, Splinter, Fear Itself, White Air, and Thieves.

Dark brown-haired, hazel green-eyed, 6’ tall Sizemore, who had long battled drug addiction, was found guilty for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss (born on December 30, 1965), in 2003. He recently contested his conviction, arguing that Fleiss had faked the main evidence, a photograph of Fleiss with facial bruises.


Star of Temple

Childhood and Family:

On September 29, 1964, Thomas Edward Sizemore Jr., nicknamed Tommy, was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father, a philosophy professor-turned-lawyer, divorced Tom's mother when he was 15 years old. The older brother of actor Paul Sizemore, Tom Sizemore became interested in acting after watching Robert DeNiro’s performance in the films Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. After graduating from a Catholic boy’s school, Tom studied Theater at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where he gained a B.F.A. He followed it up by working toward his Masters at the Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"I was the star of the class. I got the best roles. I was a very serious actor. Besides me, no one from that class has done anything in the business." Tom Sizemore (on his time as a drama student at Temple University)

On September 1, 1996, Sizemore tied the knot with actress Maeve Quinlan (born on November 16, 1969). She was a professional tennis player and joined the cast of CBS’ daytime soap “The Bold and the Beautiful” in 1999. Sizemore and Quinlan divorced on November 19, 1999.


Fortunate Actor

Career:

"I was a wayward kid, a rambunctious and angry teenager, but I found acting as a fifteen-year-old. I saw some movies with Montgomery Clift and James Dean, and I read biographies about them - then Marlon Brando - and I got it in my head that I wanted to be an actor. The first scene I did in an acting class was from In the Boom Boom Room, by David Rabe. I played Big Al. It was a very violent and emotional scene, and I liked that. I realized I had it in me." Tom Sizemore

Aspiring actor Tom Sizemore headed for the Big Apple to pursue an acting career. During his struggling days, he worked as a waiter in the executive dining room of the World Trade Center and performed in stage productions of local theater and Off-Broadway. In 1989, Sizemore landed on the wide screen in a feature-acting debut as a glib con, who befriends Sylvester Stallone’s character, in John Flynn's action adventure film Lock Up (also with Donald Sutherland). He followed it up with small parts in David Greenwalt and Aaron Russo's Rude Awakening (starring Cheech Marin and Eric Roberts) and Arthur Penn's Penn & Teller Get Killed (starring Penn Jillette and Teller).

In Oliver Stone's adaptation of Ron Kovic's book, the biopic Born on the Fourth of July (1989, starring Tom Cruise), Sizemore appeared as an angry wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet. That same year, TV viewers remembered him for playing the recurring role of Sgt. Vinnie Ventresca, the Dog Man (1989-1990), the love admiration of Nurse Colleen McMurphy (played by Dana Delany), on ABC’s Vietnam war drama series "China Beach." He also appeared as Paul on ABC’s limited episode series "Gideon Oliver" (starring Louis Gossett Jr.), in the segment "Sleep Well, Professor Oliver."

Welcoming in the early 1990s, Sizemore appeared in W.T. Morgan's campus comedy A Matter of Degrees (starring Arye Gross and Sarah Bork) and Kathryn Bigelow's cop thriller Blue Steel (starring Jamie Lee Curtis). He then was featured in John Milius' adaptation of Stephen Coonts' novel, the Navy film Flight of the Intruder (with Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson), writer-director Irwin Winkler's portrait of the 1950s blacklisting scandal Guilty by Suspicion (starring Robert De Niro) and Kathryn Bigelow's crime/sport film Point Break (starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves). He also joined Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson in Simon Wincer's Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, and Dylan McDermott and Sharon Stone in actor-writer-director Charles Finch's psychodrama Where Sleeping Dogs Lie.

After costarring with Brad Johnson and Kathleen Quinlan in CBS’ WWII movie An American Story, and with Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne in Kevin Hooks' hijack suspense film Passenger 57 (1992), Sizemore starred in the little-seen, writer-director Tom Flynn's comedy Watch It (with Peter Gallagher) and Jill Goldman's drama Love Is Like That (a.k.a. Bad Love, alongside Pamela Gidley, both in 1993). That same year, Sizemore got his first major supporting role as Milo Peck, one of four deceased passengers who enters into the body of a newborn baby, in Ron Underwood's version of Gregory Hansen's short film, the fantasy comedy Heart and Souls (with Robert Downey Jr., Charles Grodin, Alfre Woodard and Kyra Sedgwick). He also appeared in Tony Scott's True Romance (starring Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette), Rowdy Herrington's Striking Distance (starring Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lawrence Kasdan's epic story of love and adventure, the Western biopic Wyatt Earp (starring Kevin Costner, Sizemore played Bat Masterson).

Director Oliver Stone cast Sizemore to play the supporting role of sadistic Det. Jack Scagnetti in the controversial Natural Born Killers (1994, starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis). About his role in the film, Sizemore explained, "Strangling that girl was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Number one, it was her first movie. Two, she was really nice. And three, there she was in Winslow, Arizona - the middle of nowhere - with me and Oliver Stone, and she had to get raped and murdered."

More prominent supporting roles followed. Sizemore played DeWitt Albright, the man who gave Denzel Washington’s character a dangerous job, in Carl Franklin's screen version of Walter Mosley's book, Devil in a Blue Dress and was cast as Max Peltier in Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days (with Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis). He also portrayed Michael Cheritto in writer-director Michael Mann’s crime epic Heat, opposite Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

Sizemore won his first leading role in Peter Hyams' horror film, based on Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's novel, the
supernatural thriller The Relic (1997, alongside Penelope Ann Miller), in which he played a Chicago cop trying to solve a series of murders. He subsequently played reputed gangland boss John Gotti in the NBC miniseries "Witness to the Mob” (1998, helmed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, executive produced by Robert De Niro, also starring Nicholas Turturro). Also in that year, Steven Spielberg recruited Sizemore to costar as Sergeant Mike Horvath, opposite Tom Hanks, in the WWII drama Saving Private Ryan (1998).

The rest of the 1990s watched Sizemore reuniting with then-wife Maeve Quinlan in Nick Stagliano's drama comedy The Florentine, featured in writer-director Mick Davis' Scottish soccer film The Match, and play a wild ambulance driver in Martin Scorsese's dram film, adopted from Joe Connelly's novel, Bringing Out the Dead (starring Nicolas Cage). He also starred as Bobby "Bats" Batton, a South Boston mobster, in the Richard Pearce-directed HBO movie Witness Protection and became one of the fight promoters in writer-director Ron Shelton's boxing film Play It to the Bone (starring Antonio Banderas and Woody Harrelson).

Sizemore entered the new millennium with a costarring role, opposite Val Kilmer, in Antony Hoffman's sci-fi movie Red Planet (played Dr. Quinn Burchenal), costarred with Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (as Sgt. Earl Sistern), and was seen with Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor in Ridley Scott's adaptation of Mark Bowden's book, Black Hawk Down (played Lt. Col. Danny McKnight). On the small screen, Sizemore gained positive reviews for his starring role on FX’s acclaimed movie, Sins of the Father, a documentary drama about a man who is concerned his father is involved in the 1964 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama. He also starred as Lt. Sam Cole on CBS’s brief-lived crime drama series "Robbery Homicide Division" (2002-2003).

Subsequent years saw Sizemore costarring with Morgan Freeman in Lawrence Kasdan's adaptation of Stephen King's novel, the thriller Dreamcatcher, star as Hollywood paparazzi's ring leader Rex Harper in Paul Abascal's thriller Paparazzi, and portraying baseball legend Pete Rose in ESPN's biographical movie Hustle. In 2005, Sizemore could be seen in Gerry Anderson's action No Rules, writer-director John Penney's thriller Zyzzyx Rd., Glenn Klinker's drama The Nickel Children, and writer-actor-director Silvio Pollio's comedy Shut Up and Shoot. Soon, he will star in the upcoming films; Rocco Devilliers' adventure Flyboys (with Stephen Baldwin and Jesse James), Michael D. Olmos' thriller Splinter, and writer-director Rubi Zack's thriller Fear Itself. He will also costar with Riley Smith in U. Wolfgang Wagenknecht's snowboarding film White Air and with Thomas Jane in Roel Reiné's crime action Thieves.

"I'm a very fortunate actor. I'm blessed to be the position I'm in right now. Hell, I'm blessed to be in any position, you know? There are so many guys who had good lives, great lives, and blew it. I think there are some guys who think they don't deserve to have good lives. They feel they don't deserve their good fortune, so they throw it away. One of my good friends was Chris Farley. Chris blew it. He blew the whole enchilada." Tom Sizemore


Awards:
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