Kurt Russell

Kurt Russell spent his childhood under contract. Disney signed him in 1966 for ten years and worked him through a run of amiable comedies that gave him a career and, arguably, a ceiling. He also played minor-league baseball in the California Angels organisation until a rotator cuff injury ended that in 1973. The route out came in 1979, when John Carpenter cast him as Elvis Presley in a television film. The performance brought an Emmy nomination and, more usefully, permission to be taken seriously.

What followed was the partnership that defined him. Escape from New York in 1981 gave him Snake Plissken, an eyepatch and not much dialogue. The Thing in 1982 was received coolly and has since been reassessed almost beyond recognition. Big Trouble in Little China followed in 1986. In between, Mike Nichols cast him opposite Meryl Streep in Silkwood in 1983, which brought a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor and demonstrated that the man could do considerably more than squint.

The rest of the peak was commercial and deliberately varied. Overboard in 1987 paired him with Goldie Hawn, his partner away from the set as well. Tango and Cash in 1989, Backdraft in 1991, then Tombstone in 1993, where his Wyatt Earp anchored a western that has outlived most of its competition. Stargate arrived in 1994. Russell never appeared to be building a legacy, which is possibly why the filmography holds up so well: he took the work and did it properly.

The then-and-now photographs are unusually undramatic, and that is rather the point. Russell kept working without a reinvention, a comeback or a long silence, moving from leading man to character actor with no visible ceremony. Tarantino used him repeatedly through the 2010s. Marvel used him once. The beard went white. He has been with Hawn since 1983 and neither has married the other. There is no second act on record because the first one was never allowed to close.