Robert Englund | |
---|---|
![]() Englund in 2008
|
|
Born |
Robert Barton Englund June 6, 1947 Glendale, California, U.S. |
Residence | Laguna Beach, California |
Education | California State University, Northridge |
Alma mater | Royal Academy of Dramatic Art |
Years active | 1972–present |
Known for | A Nightmare on Elm Street |
Home town | Los Angeles, California |
Net worth | $14 million (2015) |
Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Gardner (1968 - 1972) (divorced) Nancy Booth (1988 - present) |
Website | www |
Robert Barton Englund (born June 6, 1947) is an American film and stage actor, voice-actor, singer, and director, best known for playing the character of infamous serial killer Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master in 1988. Englund is a classically trained actor.
Englund was born in Glendale, California, on June 6, 1947, the son of Janis (née MacDonald) and John Kent Englund, an aeronautics engineer who helped develop the Lockheed U-2 airplane. He is of part Swedish ancestry. Englund began studying acting at the age of twelve, accompanying a friend to a children's theater program at California State University, Northridge. While he was in high school, he attended the Cranbrook Theatre School (organized by the Cranbrook Educational Community) in Bloomfield Hills. He then attended UCLA for three years, before dropping out and transferring to Michigan's Oakland University, where he trained at the Meadow Brook Theater, at the time a branch of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Englund had five successful years performing in regional theater including plays by Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. He married for the first time in 1968 to the nurse Elizabeth Gardner, whom he divorced in 1972. Shortly afterward, he returned to the West Coast in search of film work, and landed a supporting role in the film Buster and Billie, directed by Daniel Petrie.