Kevin Spacey

1959-present

On July 26, a jury at a London Court acquitted actor Kevin Spacey of seven charges of sexual assault and two other counts of serious sexual offenses after more than 12 hours of deliberation across three days. The trial lasted four weeks and covered allegations from 2004 to 2013 when the Academy Award winner served as artistic director at the Old Vic Theatre.

Kevin Spacey is an American actor known for his roles in films like The Usual Suspects (1995) and American Beauty (1999), for which Spacey respectively won Oscars for best supporting actor and best actor. Appearing in other films like the crime thriller Se7en (1995) Spacey rose to international stardom and earned greater exposure in features like L.A. Confidential (1997) and Superman Returns (2006). Spacey also earned acclaim for his stage work and performance on the hit Netflix show House of Cards, before his career was derailed in late 2017 by allegations of sexual misconduct.

FULL NAME: Kevin Spacey Fowler
BORN: July 26, 1959
BIRTHPLACE: South Orange, New Jersey
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo

Spacey was born in South Orange, New Jersey, on July 26, 1959, the youngest of three children of a technical writer and a secretary. The family relocated to Southern California when Spacey was 4 years old. He was sent to military school, but expelled for throwing a tire at another student. He channeled his rebellious energy into acting and transferred to Los Angeles’ drama-centric Chatsworth High School, where he graduated co-valedictorian.

Former classmate Val Kilmer convinced the skilled impressionist to enroll in New York City's renowned Julliard School, but he left Julliard after two years to join the New York Shakespeare Festival.

After various roles on stage and in television, Spacey moved to the big screen, with early film credits including Working Girl (1988), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992).

In the mid-1990s, Spacey was catapulted into international stardom with lead performances in the hit movies The Usual Suspects (1995; for which he won the Oscar for best actor in a supporting role) and Se7en (1995). These early films led to additional opportunities, and Spacey shined in such films as A Time to Kill (1996), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), L.A. Confidential (1997), and American Beauty (1999; for which he won the Academy Award for best actor in a lead role).

“The less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character onscreen.” - Kevin Spacey

With two Oscars under his belt and countless other awards to come, Spacey was able to pick roles in a wide variety of films, and he took full advantage of his artistic freedom by playing the lead in such movies as Pay It Forward (2000), The Shipping News (2001) and The Life of David Gale (2003).

In 2004 Spacey starred as singer Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea, which he also produced, directed, and co-wrote. Two years later, he switched gears completely, taking on the iconic supervillain role of Lex Luthor in Superman Returns (2006).

Spacey also portrayed Richard Nixon in Elvis & Nixon, a 2016 comedy-drama about the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s meeting with Nixon in 1970.

Kevin Spacey

Before 2013, the last time Kevin Spacey appeared in a TV role was in the 1994 TV movie Doomsday Gun. However, in 2013 he returned to a scripted series in the role of Congressman Frank Underwood for the Netflix original drama House of Cards. The role allowed Spacey to show off his complete range: from his quietly brilliant moments to those allowing him to chew some scenery and everything in between. This range helped Spacey secure both Golden Globe and Emmy nominations, and the actor won a Globe award in 2015 for the role.

In addition to his film work, Spacey is a well-respected theater actor in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Notable stage credits include Lost in Yonkers (1991) and The Iceman Cometh (1998).

In 2003, Spacey was appointed artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre in London, and he later starred in the company’s productions of The Philadelphia Story (2005), A Moon for the Misbegotten (2006), Inherit the Wind (2009) and Shakespeare's Richard III (2011).

Although Spacey had long kept his personal life a private matter, he found it suddenly pried open in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal: In an article posted to Buzzfeed on Oct. 29, 2017, Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp alleged that during a party at Spacey’s apartment in 1986, the drunken host had carried him to a bed and climbed on top of him. Both were performing in Broadway shows at the time, though Spacey was 26 and Rapp was just 14.

After the news broke, Spacey took to Twitter to address the allegation. Noting that he did not remember the incident, he declared that he was “beyond horrified” to hear what he had done and that he owed Rapp the “sincerest apology” for his actions.

Additionally, Spacey used the moment to make his own announcement: “This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life,” he wrote. “I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly, and that starts with examining my own behavior.” A few days later, it was reported that he was seeking unspecified treatment.

However, Spacey’s attempt at damage control did little to stem the backlash. On Oct. 31, Netflix announced that production was being halted on the sixth and final season of House of Cards. On Nov. 2, publicist Staci Wolfe and Creative Artists Agency both ended their professional relationship with Spacey. Shortly afterward, a former House of Cards production assistant said he had been sexually assaulted by its star, while other former and current set workers described a “toxic” environment fostered by the actor’s behavior.

The following day, Netflix announced that the company would no longer be working with Spacey in any capacity and as such was shutting down post-production work on his new film, Gore. It was later revealed that Netflix lost $39 million from costs associated with canceling Spacey-related projects.

His career continued to unravel as more people stepped forward with accusations in the following days. On Nov. 9, it was announced that director Ridley Scott had cut all of Spacey’s scenes from his completed movie, All the Money in the World, due for a Dec. 22 release, and was reshooting those scenes with Christopher Plummer. Around that time, the London Metropolitan Police Service began looking into two allegations of sexual assault and another of assault against the troubled actor.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department opened an investigation into allegations of sexual assault from a 25-year-old incident involving Spacey. In April 2018, the department said it had completed the investigation and turned the case over to the L.A. County District Attorney's Office for further review. In August, CNN reported that the office was reviewing another case involving Spacey.

In July, the BBC reported that the Met police were investigating three more allegations of sexual assault against Spacey, bringing the number of claims against him in the United Kingdom to six.

In January 2019, Spacey was charged with a single felony count of indecent assault and battery in Nantucket, Massachusetts, after allegedly groping a teenager at a restaurant. The charge was dismissed in July after it was learned that the accuser had deleted potentially exculpatory data from his phone and then declined to follow through with his testimony.

Although his career was in shambles, Spacey still had projects that were completed before news of his misdeeds became public, and was scheduled to return to the screen with the digital release of Billionaire Boys Club in July 2018 and a limited theatrical run the following month. Spacey has a small but pivotal role in the film as an investor and con man who gets involved in the main characters’ Ponzi scheme.

Anticipating the backlash, the project’s distributor, Vertical Entertainment, released a statement that said: “We hope these distressing allegations pertaining to one person’s behavior—that were not publicly known when the film was made almost 2.5 years ago and from someone who has a small, supporting role in Billionaire Boys Club—does not tarnish the release of the film.”

It was reported that Billionaire Boys Club took in a staggeringly low total of $126 on the day of its release, largely due to the film appearing in only eight theaters.

Actor Kevin Spacey, right, enters Southwark Crown Court in London amid his sexual assault trial in July 2023. A jury cleared Spacey of all charges.

In August 2022, a judge ordered Spacey to pay MRC, the production team behind House of Cards, nearly $31 million for his alleged sexual misconduct behind the scenes of the Netflix program.

Rapp filed a lawsuit against Spacey seeking $40 million in damages, and the case was brought to New York federal court in October 2022. After only deliberating for an hour, a jury decided that Rapp had not proven his allegations of sexual abuse and cleared Spacey of the charges.

Then on July 26, 2023, a London jury cleared Spacey of seven counts of sexual assault and two counts of other sexual offenses following a four-week trial at the Southwark Crown Court. The allegations covered a period from 2004 through 2013 when the actor was in his artistic director role at the Old Vic Theatre.

Spacey said he was “humbled” by the outcome and added, “I imagine that many of you can understand that there’s a lot for me to process after what has just happened today. But I would like to say that I’m enormously grateful to the jury for having taken the time to examine all of the evidence and all of the facts carefully before they reached their decision.”

As of July 2023, Celebrity Net Worth estimates Spacey’s value at around only $30 million dollars. This is largely due to the actor's lack of projects following the allegations against him and his subsequent legal fees.

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