Biography
A top-selling country music star since the mid-'80s, multi-talented Dwight Yoakam branched out into acting in the 1990s.
Born in Kentucky, Yoakam was raised in Ohio and attended college at Ohio State University. Inspired by music since childhood, Yoakam dropped out of school to move to Nashville in the late '70s. Finding the Nashville scene less than accommodating for his interpretation of country music, Yoakam subsequently headed to Los Angeles. Striking music gold with his first album in 1986, Yoakam became a renowned country-rock singer/songwriter of the '80s and '90s.
Casting an eye on another facet of Los Angeles' entertainment world, Yoakam began acting. After appearing on TV, Yoakam played a truck driver in
John Dahl's acclaimed neo-noir
Red Rock West (1993); he then provided the music score for
Red Rock West star
Dennis Hopper's 1994 comedy
Chasers. Yoakam played a larger part in the TV docudrama
Roswell (1994) (not to be mistaken for the 1999 teen series). After moving to a starring role as a rodeo clown in the action movie
Painted Hero (1995), Yoakam earned critical raves for his intense performance as an abusive drunk in
Billy Bob Thornton's Oscar-winning drama
Sling Blade (1996). Yoakam again garnered positive notices (though the movie did not) as a humble safecracking associate of the titular gang in
The Newton Boys (1998). Sticking with off-center screen fare, Yoakam subsequently starred as one of the detectives that
Owen Wilson's serial killer Van imagines is stalking him in
Hampton Fancher's idiosyncratic crime story
The Minus Man (1999). Aiming to try more creative pursuits, Yoakam wrote and directed, as well as scored and starred in, his next film, South of Heaven, West of Hell (2000). Yoakam returned to acting in
David Fincher's thriller The Panic Room (2001).
Yet despite his neverending drive to entertain, it wasn't all showbiz for the former country-boy made good, and in early 2006 Yoakam would team up with Modern Foods to produce his very own line of southern-flavored frozen foods. With products such as Dwight Yoakam's Chicken Lickin's Chicken Fries, Lanky Links Pork, Sausage Links, and Boom Boom Shrimp, the Grammy-winning recording artist and increasingly popular actor would do his very best to ensure that his fans were well fed. A 2005 new album entitled Blame the Vain found Yoakam recapturing the energy and intensity that defined his earliest and best musical efforts, and following a role as a neglectful sheriff in
Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Buriels of Melquaides Estrada and a rare comedic turn in
Wedding Crashers, Yoakam sould next be seen in the edge-of-your-seat assassin-on-the-run action thriller
Crank. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide