Gary Busey

William Gary Busey is an American actor best known for his portrayal of rock legend Buddy Holly in the 1978 film The Buddy Holly Story. For his performance, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor. Over a multi-decade career, he has appeared in numerous major motion pictures, television shows, and reality programs.

Busey was born on June 29, 1944, in Goose Creek, Texas, to Delmar Lloyd Busey and Sadie Virginia Busey. He moved to Oklahoma City in 1952 and then to Tulsa in 1954. After graduating from Nathan Hale High School, he attended Coffeyville Community College and later Pittsburg State University on a football scholarship, where he developed an interest in acting. Following a knee injury, he transferred to Oklahoma State University to study theater, leaving school just one unit short of graduation.

Busey began his entertainment career in music, playing drums in the Rubber Band and the band Carp, which released an album in 1969. He also performed on recordings under the stage name Teddy Jack Eddy, a character he developed on a local Tulsa television comedy show. Transitioning to acting, he made minor film and television appearances in the 1970s, including a role on Gunsmoke, and made his major film debut in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). In 1976, he played Bobby Ritchie in A Star Is Born.

Following his breakthrough in The Buddy Holly Story, Busey starred in films such as Straight Time (1978) and Big Wednesday (1978). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he built a prolific filmography, appearing in Barbarosa (1982), D.C. Cab (1983), Silver Bullet (1985), Eye of the Tiger (1986), Lethal Weapon (1987), Hider in the House (1989), Predator 2 (1990), Point Break (1991), Under Siege (1992), The Firm (1993), Drop Zone (1994), Black Sheep (1996), and Lost Highway (1997).

Beyond feature films, Busey voiced Phil Cassidy in the video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and voiced himself on The Simpsons. He appeared on reality and competitive television series including I'm with Busey, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, The Celebrity Apprentice, Celebrity Big Brother 14—which he won in 2014—and Dancing with the Stars. In 2019, he performed Off-Broadway in the musical Only Human, and in 2020, he starred in the web series Gary Busey Pet Judge.