Somehow, I have a difficult time thinking of Jeff Bridges turning 70 because of Sea Hunt. Jeff appeared in four episodes, and his eight-years-older brother Beau a couple of times in the series. Sea Hunt starred their late father Lloyd, an early syndicated show in the late 1950s.
You probably know Lloyd Bridges best from the movie Airplane! Actually, Jeff and his brother both made their film debuts, without billing, alongside their mother Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson) in the film The Company She Keeps (1951).
While I’ve seen Jeff in a few films, I’ve NOT seen most of his iconic roles. Need to fix that, surely. I did catch him in The Last Picture Show (1969), The Fisher King (1991), Iron Man (2008), and Crazy Heart (2009).
Starman (1984) which I loved, has one of my favorite pieces of dialogue:
Starman [Jeff Bridges]: Okay?
Jenny Hayden [Karen Allen]: Okay? Are you crazy? You almost got us killed! You said you watched me, you said you knew the rules!
Starman: I do know the rules.
Jenny Hayden: Oh, for your information pal, that was a yellow light back there!
Starman: I watched you very carefully. Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.
I have soundtracks of two Bridges films that I did not see, Against All Odds (1984) and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), the latter containing Joe Jackson songs. I also have the Crazy Heart soundtrack, on which Bridges gives credible performances.
Bowling
But I missed TRON (1982), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1988), and Hell or High Water (2016), among others. And I have never seen, all the way through, The Big Lebowski (1998). I’m quite aware of its cultural significance of The Dude.
The Big Lebowski played at the Madison Theatre, three blocks from my house, less than a half-decade ago, but the timing didn’t work out. Now I have seen large chunks of it, and for that matter, TRON, on TV from time to time. If the Madison ever reopens and brings it back, I’ll be in line.
Jeff Bridges turns the Big 7-0 today.
I always forget that Lloyd Bridges was their dad….
(And I thought one of them narrated the “pure Michigan” tourism ads I see regularly, but looking it up, it’s Jeff Daniels. Not sure why I thought it was one of the Bridges brothers… I guess I get Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges confused)