Career

Bottoms made his screen debut in the ABC television movie Trouble Comes to Town. A year later he played the role of Robin Lee Graham, in The Dove, a real-life story about a teenager sailor's voyage around the world. Bottoms won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor, joining a host of other actors that have won the award such as Richard Burton, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight and later Ben Kingsley.

In the 1978 mini-series Holocaust, he starred as Rudi Weiss, a German Jew who joins the Jewish partisans. The series was well-received, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries.

The German Jews were the most assimilated in Europe. They were vital to Germany's culture—which, indeed, has never recovered from their extinction. They couldn't see they were hated in direct proportion to their learning, vitality and success. The aridity of the Nazi mind was the biggest poser the authors had to face. In creating Erik Dorff they went some way towards overcoming it. Played with spellbinding creepiness by Michael Moriarty, Erik spoke his murderous euphemisms in a voice as juiceless as Hitler's prose or Speer's architecture. Hitler's dream of the racially pure future was of an abstract landscape tended by chain-gangs of shadows and crisscrossed with highways bearing truckloads of Aryans endlessly speeding to somewhere undefined. Dorff sounded just like that: his dead mackerel eyes were dully alight with a limitless vision of banality.

A year later he starred in The Black Hole, a science fiction film that grossed over $35 million at the US box office. In 1981, he made his Broadway debut in Fifth of July. The play made its Broadway debut at the New Apollo Theatre on November 5, 1980, directed by Mason with Daniels reprising the role of Jed, Christopher Reeve as Ken and Swoosie Kurtz as Gwen. Replacement actors for the role of Ken included Richard Thomas, Michael O'Keefe, Timothy Bottoms, and his brother Joseph Bottoms. Laraine Newman replaced Kurtz as Gwen. Kathy Bates was also a replacement in the role of June.

In 1984 he starred alongside Kirstie Alley in Blind Date. Between 1985-1986, he was a series regular on the soap opera, Santa Barbara. In 1990 he began a guest arc on the Canadian television series, Street Legal. In 1991 he played the second Cal Winters in the soap opera, Days of Our Lives. In 1998 he was cast as a series regular in The Net.

His latest screen appearance was in 1999 in the TV series, V.I.P..

Personal life

Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, and is the second son of sculptor James "Bud" Bottoms and Betty (née Chapman). He is the brother of actors Timothy Bottoms, Sam Bottoms, and Ben Bottoms. Bottoms has been married twice and twice divorced. Since 1999, Bottoms has been running the Bottoms Art Galleries in Santa Barbara that also includes his father's sculptures.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	The Dove	Robin Lee Graham	Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor
1976	Crime and Passion	Larry
1977	High Rolling	Texas
1979	The Black Hole	Lieutenant Charlie Pizer
1980	Cloud Dancer	Tom Loomis
1981	King of the Mountain	Buddy
1981	Surfacing	Joe
1983	The Sins of Dorian Gray	Stuart Vane
1984	Blind Date	Jonathan Ratcliff
1988	Open House	Dr. David Kelley
1988	Born to Race	Al Pagura
1991	Inner Sanctum	Baxter Reed
1992	Liar's Edge	Dave Kirkpatrick
1992	Treacherous Crossing	Kenneth Gates
1997	Snide and Prejudice	Therapist Himmler
1998	Joseph's Gift	Simon Keller

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1973	Trouble Comes to Town	Billy Keith	TV movie
1973	Winesburg, Ohio	George Willard	TV movie
1974	Unwed Father	Peter	TV movie
1976	Stalk the Wild Child	Cal, as a young man	TV movie
1978	Family	Seth Oliver	1 episode; "A Friend of the Family's"
1978	Holocaust	Rudi Weiss	TV mini-series
1978	Return Engagement	Steward Anderman	TV movie
1979	Disneyland	Major Effects	1 episode; "Major Effects"
1981	The Intruder Within	Scott	TV movie
1982	Side by Side: The True Story of the Osmond Family	George Osmond	TV movie
1983	I married Wyatt Earp	The Driver	TV movie
1983	Wishman	Dr. Alex MacGregor	TV movie
1984	Celebrity	Mack Crawford	TV mini-series
1984	Time Bomb	Daniel 'Dan' Picard	TV movie
1985	Murder, She Wrote	Mickey Shannon	1 episode; "Murder at the Oasis"
1985	Braker	Eddie Kelso	TV pilot
1985-1986	Santa Barbara	Kirk Cranston	Series regular
1987	Shades of Love: Make Mine Chartreuse	Steve	TV movie
1987	Island Sons	Joe Faraday	TV movie
1987	CBS Summer Playhouse	Dr. Martin Wilde	1 episode; "Doctors Wilde"
1988	Cop Killer	Lewis	TV movie
1988	The Highwayman	Bonham	1 episode; "Till Death Duel us Apart"
1990	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Jack Kingston	1 episode; "Maggie's Secret"
1990	Flair	Matt Lee	TV mini-series
1990-1991	Street Legal	Peter Garland	5 episodes
1991	Road to Avonlea	Edwin Clark	1 episode; "May the Best Man Win"
1991	Days of Our Lives	Carl Winters 2
1992	Gunsmoke: To the Last Man	Tommy Graham	TV movie
1992	The Young Riders		1 episode; "The Road Not Taken"
1997	Walker, Texas Ranger	Tom Wilson	2 episodes; "Last of a Breed: Part 1", "Last of a Breed: Part 2"
1998-1999	The Net	Shawn Trelawney	Series regular
1999	Profiler	Bobby O'Hara	1 episode; "Seduction"
1999	V.I.P.		1 episode; "Stop or Val's mom will shoot"

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	Fifth of July	Ken

[ Source: Wikipedia ]