Tom Sizemore Biography
Born: 1964
A burly, commanding actor known almost as much for the tumultuous quality of his offscreen life as that of his onscreen roles, Tom Sizemore has carved out a niche for himself in such guys 'n' guns films as Natural_Born_Killers, Strange_Days, Heat, and Saving_Private_Ryan.
Born in Detroit, Sizemore was educated at Wayne State and Temple University, earning a Master's in theater at the latter. He enjoyed an auspicious debut year in 1989 when he appeared in no less than four movies including Oliver_Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. That same year, the actor won the semi-regular role of Vinnie Ventressa on the popular TV drama China_Beach. He went on to do starring work in such films as Stone's Natural_Born_Killers (1994), Carl_Franklin's highly praised crime noir Devil in a Blue Dress (1994) and Michael_Mann's crime thriller Heat. Sizemore's involvement with the latter film marked a personal turning point for him; for years he suffered from a well-publicized addiction to heroin, and he seemed to be losing his battle until he met his Heat co-star and childhood icon Robert_De_Niro, who, Sizemore subsequently admitted in interviews, convinced him to go into rehab.
In 1998, Sizemore starred in what was possibly his most high-profile role to date in Steven_Spielberg's WWII epic Saving_Private_Ryan. Cast as Sgt. Horvath, Tom_Hanks' right hand man, the actor earned positive notices as part of a stellar ensemble cast that also included Giovanni_Ribisi, Matt_Damon, Jeremy_Davies, and Vin_Diesel. He subsequently porked out to play mob boss John Gotti in the made-for-TV Witness to the Mob and then returned to the screen in Martin_Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999), which cast him as Nicolas_Cage's ex-best friend. In 2000, Sizemore starred alongside Val_Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss in the sci-fi adventure Red_Planet; that same year, he appeared in Play It to the Bone, a boxing drama starring Woody_Harrelson and Antonio_Banderas. With the release of Pearl_Harbor and Black_Hawk_Down the following year, the grizzled screen veteran seemed as if he may be threatening to becoming something of a later-day action star.
Though to this point Sizemore's work in features had left him with little experience in the realm of television, all of that would change when he took the lead in the 2002 series Robbery_Homicide_Division. For an actor who excelled at playing hardened detectives and rough cops, the show seemed the ideal star vehicle for Sizemore, and after contributing vocal work for the controversial video game *Grand Theft Auto: Vice City that same year, he stepped into the lead for the crime thriller Swindle as the year wound to a close. A supporting role in Dreamcatcher got 2003 off to a shaky start, and things only went downhill from there when, in October of that year, the troubled actor entered rehab before being sentenced to six months in prison on domestic violence charges. Though his personal life may have been somewhat in flux, one certainly couldn't tell by looking at his screen credits for 2004 -- a year in which Sizemore would appear in no less than four films including the family adventure Fly Boys. Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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