Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Bill Paxton discovered his acting aspirations during high school, when he and several friends made their own movies using hand-held cameras and Super 8 film. His parents encouraged this sort of adventurous behavior, and they supported Paxton's decision, at the age of eighteen, to move to Los Angeles after he had been promised a few weeks of work on an educational film.
Three weeks turned into three years, and when he wasn't hanging around movie sets, he paid the bills by parking cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He earned his first break at Roger Corman's New World Pictures, where he worked as a set dresser and eventually won a small role in CRAZY MAMA (1975). Convinced that he would get more work with the benefit of a few acting lessons, Paxton relocated to the East Coast to study acting under famed drama coach Stella Adler, at New York University.
When he returned to the West Coast, Paxton's career began to take shape, with eleven appearances on the silver screen between 1981 and 1986. Following a string of bit parts in critically lauded films, he landed major supporting roles in back-to-back movies playing soldier-types in WEIRD SCIENCE and ALIENS. This same period, Paxton wrote, directed, and produced two award-winning short films, and cut an album as half of the rock group Martini Ranch.
Although he continued to take supporting roles in mainstream action flicks, Paxton defied typecasting by simultaneously appearing in offbeat, independent productions. It was Paxton's ability to play straight-shooters that finally blew his career potential wide open. Offers began pouring in after his earnest turn as astronaut and family man Fred Haise in APOLLO 13. Paxton then landed a role in what turned out to be one of the biggest moneymakers in the history of cinema, TWISTER.
