Chris Penn was an actor best known for playing Nice Guy Eddie Cabot in Quentin Tarantino's opus Reservoir Dogs.
Christopher Shannon Penn was born on October 10, 1965, in Los Angeles. His father was the noted television director, actor, and political activist Leo Penn, and his mother was the actress Eileen Ryan, who starred in Magnolia with Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore. He had three brothers; actor Sean Penn, television actor Matthew Penn; and musician Michael Penn. Chris Penn had a rowdy childhood in which he was expelled from high school, but he enjoyed sports, and even went on to become a black belt in karate. He started acting at the tender age of twelve, studying at the Loft Studio under Peggy Feury. Two years later Chris made his movie début in Charlie and the Talking Buzzard, alongside Christopher Hanks and John Davenport, but the film that got him noticed was 1983's Rumble Fish, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and also starring Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Dennis Hopper.
In 1984, Penn made a change of pace in the iconic dance movie Footloose, with Kevin Bacon and Sarah Jessica Parker. His acting so impressed Clint Eastwood that he was subsequently given a role in Pale Rider. Following this he had several supporting roles in films including At Close Range, with Christopher Walken and Mary Stuart Masterson; Made in USA, with Judith Baldwin and Lori Singer; and Mobsters, with Christian Slater and Patrick Dempsey. In 1996 Penn won a Best Supporting Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for his work in Abel Ferrara's The Funeral. Yet it was as Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs, with Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Steve Buscemi, that Penn achieved his greatest popular success. He also appeared in the Tarantino-scripted True Romance, alongside Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Gary Oldman, and Brad Pitt.
By the late 90s, Penn was struggling with personal problems including alcohol and drug abuse. His long term relationship with actress Steffiana de la Cruz was breaking down, and he was arrested four times for driving-related offences as well as for unlawful possession of a firearm. Although he still made movies and had a major role in the big screen version of Starsky and Hutch, with Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Snoop Dogg, Penn supported himself mostly through television work. He also made a move into voice acting, playing Officer Eddie Pulaski in the massively successful video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
On January 24, 2006, Penn was found dead in his Santa Monica home. Press speculation was rife, but the coroner concluded that he had died from heart disease exacerbated by prescription drugs. He was buried in Holy Cross cemetery in Culver City, California. Guests at his funeral included Jack Nicholson, James Gandolfini, Tim Robbins, Charlie Sheen, and Robert Downey Jr. One of his final films, The Darwin Awards, based on the famous website featuring unlikely deaths, premièred at the Sundance Film Festival the day after he died. His three remaining films, King of Sorrow, with Benz Antoine and Angela Asher; Holly, with Virginia Ledoyen and Udo Kier; and Aftermath, with Anthony Michael Hall are yet to be released.
YUDDY
