- An instinct for acting showed very early for Bruce. In 1935, aged 3, he distracted his mother from the worries of Depression-era Chicago by recreating stuff they'd seen at the movies like FDR struggling to walk, putting his little body through it, to try to understand by experiencing it. A knack for comedy showed when as part of a church pageant his #1 line, ''No room at the Inn", booming hugely out of a tiny body sent the whole congregation into laughter. He so enjoyed it he repeated it even louder to louder laughter then again and again continuing even as he was chased by the minister all over the altar to gales of laughter.
At age 6, he had his first job, earning 60 cents for 6 days of delivering groceries. From then on there was always a job after school, Saturdays and summers, such as on a Chicago Loop newsstand or in a glass factory ladling molten glass. At age 15, his desperate father asked him to quit school to help support the family. His mother saved him by herself taking a job. School was showing him two paths out of poverty: art (selling paintings) and football (the 1949 Chicago high school city champs) and a chance for a scholarship. He played for two college seasons and moonlighted on a semi-pro team. Then a new window opened -- posing at an Art Institute class with a naked lady who said, ''How would you like to- [pause] - be a gorilla?'' She was a stripper and needed a guy strong enough to wear a 90 lb. ape suit and toss her around. A magician at the club tapped him jokingly with his magic wand, saying "Bruce, you are an actor".
Drafted into the U.S. Army for the Korean War, he served there for the last six months of that war, and came back with malaria, delaying his football. He tried out for a play (in 1955) never having had an acting class or read a book on it, but he was a natural, got the lead and great reviews, went to summer stock did a new play every week. He did a dozen years of theater, on Broadway and off-Broadway. He visited Hollywood in 1965. In 1967, he made it his home.- IMDb mini biography by: realbruceglover@gmail.com
- SpousesBetty Glover(September 6, 1960 - May 27, 2016) (her death, 1 child)Constance Jeanette Overstake(November 7, 1949 - 1950) (divorced, 1 child)
- ChildrenMichael Leigh Glover
- ParentsHerbert Homan GloverEva Elvira Hedstrom
- Resembles director Terry Gilliam
- Playing demented villains
- Father of Crispin Glover and Michael Leigh Glover.
- (1995-) Teaches acting classes in Los Angeles when not filming.
- His father, Herbert Homan Glover, was of half English and half Bohemian (Czech) ancestry. His mother, Eva Elvira (Hedstrom), was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Swedish parents.
- Served in the US Army from 1953 to 1955 of which six months were in the Korean War.
- Sometimes the best thing you could do is a real bad film . . . you could improvise all over the place and probably only improve the script.
- That's why gurus or teachers who have found the truth are effectively dead. The artist must continue to look for a new reference. Every day, every performance, every take.
- Acting is an art form. If you are not creating something that's unusual and informative and at least has the possibility of being illuminating then you are not into it as an art form.
- [on various acting "techniques"] Too often these techniques are like little religions. The "truth" is there and you are now worshiping at the shrine with these sad little priests and priestesses who are too afraid to go out there and learn something new for themselves.
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