The stocky supporting player Chris Penn, the younger brother of actor-director Sean Penn and son of director Leo Penn, built a soild career as one of Hollywood's most reliable character players, and while he typically toiled as a journeyman actor specializing in playing rumpled cops, small time crooks and knucklebreakers, he occasionally showed flashes of intensity and brilliance that would evoke favorable comparisons to his more lauded older brother.

The actor was born into a show business family that, along with his brother and father included his actress mother, Eileen Ryan, and his younger