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Gary Busey  

Gary Busey was born June 29, 1944 and is an American film and stage actor and artist; Dancing With the Stars Season 21

Gary Busey was born June 29, 1944 and is an American film and stage actor and artist. He has appeared in over 120 films not including regular appearances on Gunsmoke, Walker, Texas Ranger, Law & Order, and Entourage. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 1978 for his role in The Buddy Holly Story.

Busey began his show-business career as a drummer in The Rubber Band. He appears on several Leon Russell recordings, credited as playing drums under the names "Teddy Jack Eddy" and "Sprunk," a character he created when he was a cast member of a local television comedy show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting (which starred fellow Tulsan Gailard Sartain as "Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi"). He played in a band called Carp, who released one album on Epic Records in 1969. Busey continued to play several small roles in both film and television during the 1970s. In 1975, as the character "Harvey Daley," he was the last person killed on the series Gunsmoke (in the antepenultimate episode, No. 633 – "The Los Carnales").

In 1976 he was hired by Barbra Streisand and her Producer-boyfriend Jon Peters to play Bobby Ritchie, Road Manager to Kris Kristofferson's character in the remake of the film A Star is Born. The film was a mega success and gave Busey visibility early in his movie career. On the DVD commentary of the film, Streisand says that Busey was great and that she had seen him on a TV series (probably the short lived The Texas Wheelers) and thought he had the right qualities to play the role.

In 1978, he starred as Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story with Sartain as The Big Bopper. The movie earned Busey an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In the film, he changes the lyrics to the song "Well All Right" and sings,"We're gonna love Teddy Jack..." a reference to his Teddy Jack Eddy persona. In the same year he also starred in the critically-acclaimed surfing movie Big Wednesday.

In the 1980s, Busey's roles included Silver Bullet (adapted from Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King), Barbarosa, Top Gun (voiceover for Tim Robbins' character Merlin), Insignificance and Lethal Weapon. In the movie D.C. Cab, Busey portrayed the character Dell. At one point, Dell is singing along with a cassette recording of Busey singing the song "Why Baby Why" (which Busey recorded, but still remains unreleased). In the 1990s, he appeared in Predator 2, Rookie of the Year, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Under Siege, The Firm, Lost Highway, Point Break and Black Sheep.

Busey sang the song "Stay All Night" on Saturday Night Live in March 1979 and on the Late Show with David Letterman in the 1990s.

In 2002, Busey voiced the character Phil Cassidy in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, then again in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories in 2006. He also voiced himself on a 2005 episode of The Simpsons, narrating an informational video about restraining orders.

Gary Busey appeared in the 2006 Turkish film Valley of the Wolves Iraq, (Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak, in Turkish). The film, accused of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, tells the story of the U.S. Army run amok in Iraq and brought into check by a brave Turkish soldier; Gary Busey plays a Jewish-American Army doctor who harvests fresh organs from injured Iraqi prisoners to sell to rich patients in New York City, London and Tel Aviv.

In 2007, he appeared as "his crazy self" on HBO's Entourage. Producers at HBO asked Busey to play a "character" on the show who was the self-named actor who is also a famous painter and sculptor.

Busey recently took part in a photo shoot by photographer Tyler Shields where Busey was put in a straitjacket. The shoot was reportedly for Shields' book The Dirty Side of Glamour, the proceeds from which are to be given to charity. A reporter from Inside Edition was there to cover the shoot and speak with Busey about his upcoming projects but the program instead edited together raw clips from the interview.

In 2008, he joined the second season of the reality show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Per his contract and VH1's press release, he was to be part of the mentoring team and not a patient.[8] Drew Pinsky has expressed a different opinion, saying that he can help by being in group meetings with others and is not part of the staff, but part of the patients of this second season. Busey will return to reality television in Celebrity Apprentice 4, scheduled to run on in March 2011.

In 2009, Busey was a roaster at the Comedy Central roast of Larry the Cable Guy.

In a series of 2010 YouTube advertisements for Vitamin Water, Busey appears as Norman Tugwater, a lawyer who defends Professional athletes' entitlements to a cut from Fantasy Football team owners.

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Gary Busey Joins the Cast of 'Dancing With the Stars'
Gary Busey is joining the cast of "Dancing with the Stars."

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