Topic: Kevin Costner

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J. Dunbar in the film Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Robert "Butch" Haynes in A Perfect World, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard and Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. Costner also founded the band Modern West, and has performed with the band since 2007.

Costner was born in Lynwood, California, the youngest of the three sons (the middle of whom died at birth) of Sharon Rae (née Tedrick), a welfare worker, and William Costner, an electrician and later utilities executive. He has German, English, Irish, and Cherokee ancestry (his Oklahoma-born paternal grandfather was half Cherokee). Costner was raised Baptist. He attended Cabrillo Middle School and Villa Park High School. Costner was not academically inclined. Rather, he enjoyed sports, took piano lessons, wrote poetry and sang in the First Baptist Choir.

Spending his teenage years in various parts of California as his father's career progressed, Costner lived in Orange County, then in Visalia (Tulare County), attending Mt. Whitney High School, and then back to Orange County, graduating from Villa Park High School in Villa Park, California, in 1973. He went on to earn a B.A. in business from California State University, Fullerton, in 1978.