Formed and ran the Swamp Fox Group with some high school friends while in college at the State University of New York, Buffalo; the troupe toured widely, performing original material, and won an award at the 1969 Yale Drama Festival (dates approximate)

Moved to New York after studying at San Francisco's ACT; took various odd jobs to pay the rent

Unable to find show business work in NYC, journeyed to Canada to act in a stage play, "Hooray for Johnny Canuck"; subsequently acted in a number of productions at Toronto's Factory Theatre Lab

Returned to NYC, joining the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Dodget Theatre Company to act in a production of "Gimme Shelter" by Barry Keefe

Performed in other Off-Broadway theater productions, including "Fat Fell Down" and "A Man's a Man"

Acted in "Leave It to Beaver Is Dead", an off-Broadway musical play presented by Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival

Returned to Canada

Earliest feature film appearances included a role in the Canadian-made comedy-thriller, "Highpoint"

First US TV-movie, "Jimmy B. & Andre" (CBS)

US film debut, "Death Hunt"

Breakthrough role in Hollywood films, "WarGames"

First film with Canadian producer-director-writer Paul Donovan, "Def-Con 4"

Played title role in the Canadian-made docudrama feature, "Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks"

Offered a memorable turn as the suicidal cavalry major who sends Kevin Costner west in "Dances with Wolves"

Began collaboration with writer-director Atom Egoyan with the "En Passant" segment of "Montreal vu par..." and "The Adjuster"

Fourth film with Donovan, "Buried on Sunday"

Portrayed friendly truck driver Leon "Crazy-As" Pendleton in Edward Zwick's "Leaving Normal"

First TV miniseries, "Conspiracy of Silence", which originally premiered on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in December, 1991 and later aired on CBS

First film with director Jon Amiel, "Sommersby"

Played Jessica Tandy's movie-producer son in "Camilla"; Atom Egoyan appeared as a film director

Received second Genie Award for portrayal of a deeply-troubled Brian Wilson-like musician in "Whale Music"

Played a menacing, rotund, depraved politician in "Devil in a Blue Dress"

Teamed with Michael Richards as the seriously goofy uncles in Diane Keaton's "Unstrung Heroes", directed by Diane Keaton's

Third film with Egoyan, "The Sweet Hereafter"; gave an unexpectedly disturbing performance as a choleric, cuckhold

Portrayed the prison warden in "The Mark of Zorro"

Reteamed with Amiel on "Entrapment", playing a dissipated underworld figure with a comically monstrous belly

Doubled as a store owner and a wacky, crying lawyer for the dream sequences in "Jacob Two Two and the Hooded Fang"

Played Kyra Sedgwick's aging father confronting his daughter's lesbianism when she brings her girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner in "What's Cooking?"; screened at the Sundance Film Festival

Portrayed Nero Wolfe in A&E TV-movie "The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery"

Reprised title role in the A&E series "Nero Wolfe"

Starred in "Being Julia," based on the novel "Theatre," by W. Somerset Maugham

Cast as mob boss, San Marco in Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies" starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth