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Lugar y fecha de nacimiento. R. Lee Ermey Actor Also: Technical advisor Intense middle-aged character player of film and TV who convinces as macho military hard-asses and tough cops (more often than not gone bad). Ermey made an indelible impression as the demanding and brutally derisive Marine drill sergeant in the basic training sequence of Stanley Kubrick chilling Vietnam drama, NACIDO PARA MATAR (1987). His earlier career as a Marine Staff Non-Commissioned Officer serving in Vietnam lent powerful authority to his performance. Ermey medically retired from active duty after sustaining injuries. He moved to Manila, in the Philippines, where he could afford to live on his disability pay and study for a degree in criminology on the G.I. Bill. Ermey started each day at the coffee shop of the Manila Hilton, where many Hollywood filmmakers dined before the day's location shooting. Eventually, one of them asked Ermey to model blue jeans for TV ads. Several macho ads later, the retired soldier landed a role in a local Tagalog-language film. Several other Filipino features followed before 1976, when Ermey wangled his way onto the set of Francis Ford Coppola epic production APOCALIPSIS NOW (1979). Hired to play a helicopter pilot, Ermey utilized his Vietnam memories to act as a technical adviser as well. This quickly led to a job as a technical adviser and actor on the Sidney J. Furie-directed Vietnam drama, LOS MUCHACHOS DE LA COMPAÑÍA "C" (1978). Furie gave Ermey his next stateside film job as an actor-advisor in thewar melodrama MEDALLA AL VALOR (1984), but his career really took off with the Kubrick film. Ermey has worked regularly in film and TV since the critical triumph of JACKET. He played the mayor who hanged himself in MISSISSIPPI EN LLAMAS (1988), a Southern televangelist in FLETCH 2 (1989), and a succession of military officers in various films. His TV work comprises guest shots, supporting roles in TV movies and a recurring role in the rousing, old-fashioned The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (Fox, 1993-), as the late father of the Western hero.
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