- Born
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- A native of Oregon, the son of Viennese parents, Everett is a first cousin once removed of supercentenarian Aliza Sommer-Herz (1903-2014) , subject of the Best Documentary Short of 2014, The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (2013). He graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts on an ITT International Fellowship in the Fulbright Competition, Everett is an accomplished cellist , guitarist, and country singer-songwriter (RCA album - "Porchlight on in Oregon" and the two independently released CD's "Still Waters - (A Collection of Years) & "Watershed of an Earlier Heart: Songs of the Oregon Troubador").
As a character actor, he has played everything from white collar professionals to starring as Brian David Mitchell in the television movie "The Elizabeth Smart Story" to comedic work in "Winning Isn't Everything" at New York's Hudson Guild Theatre directed by legendary comedic director George Abbott, to playing southern white trash Alfredo in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990). Higher profile roles include Sgt. Pepper in Dances with Wolves (1990), the straight-laced National Security Officer Jack Doherty in Air Force One (1997), and the black stovepipe-hatted Mosley Baker in The Alamo (2004). He created other memorable, idiosyncratic characterizations in lesser known films: Assistant Coach to James Earl Jones in Best of the Best (1989), Rabbitt in Prison (1987) starring Viggo Mortensen, etc. The directors, producers, and actors with whom he has worked more than once include, among others, Michael Bay ("Pearl Harbor, "Transformers" and "The Island"), and John Lee Hancock (including "Hard Time Romance," "The Rookie" (scenes deleted), and "The Alamo."), Kevin Costner ("Dances With Wolves" and "Thirteen Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis"), and Alex Graves & Kevin Falls ("West Wing" and "Journeyman"). Most recently he had the great pleasure of working with director Theodore Melfi in the film "The Starling."
Television audiences have seen him in a whole host of projects doing a variety of roles including as Rory Carmichael, the condemned Alabama death row inmate in the pilot episode of _"The Beast" (2001) directed by Mimi Leder, as the recurring character Charles Frost on "West Wing", and as the recurring character Dr. Elliot Langley on Journeyman (2007).
Everett received scholarships to Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, NYU School of the Arts where he received an MFA, Perry-Mansfield School of Drama and Dance. He spent 12 years in New York honing his craft and acting in five Broadway plays, many off-Broadway & off-off Broadway & regional theatre ones too (including his being a Resident Member of The American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Robert Sieger (updated)
- SpousesAnna(1993 - ?) (divorced, 1 child)Kate(1973 - ?) (divorced)
- First Chair Cellist in the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra while attending his first two years at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
- Acting teachers include Mira Rostova, Wynn Handman, Peter Kass, Martin Landau, Olympia Dukakis, John Fernald (former Director of RADA) & Norman Ayrton (LAMDA).
- While working on a TV project in Houston, Everett befriended a lady from Tyler, Texas and asked her to send him some cassettes of her just speaking; from that tape he developed the east Texas accent he employed in films such as Dances with Wolves (1990) and Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990).
- Acted in two films about the iconic Texas fort, The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987) and The Alamo (2004).
- As of 2022, has appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: The Goodbye Girl (1977), Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Of those, Dances with Wolves (1990) is a winner in the category.
- Many, many, many American teachers of the fine art of acting are, in my opinion, "generalists," regurgitating the Method in various guises, and fancy reputations of particular teachers and/or schools can be very misleading and a waste of time and money. If an individual or a school either doesn't encourage you or shine such a bright light of wisdom to guide your path, you really are wasting your time. To the young actor I say either hitch your wagon to a nourisher OR a person who is so bright you just have to keep staying on your toes to catch even the slightest whiff of his/her brilliance; the brilliant teachers are very far and few between! My teacher Mira Rostova (Montgomery Clift's teacher) was one of the "brilliants" and Norman Ayrton at LAMDA was another. My nourishers have included Stanley Gould (I)', Marie Donet, and Jacques Burdick (all at Adelphi University back in l966-67 when the theatre itself was in an old dilapidated but cozy quonset hut, but the whole department had energy and love) - also Martin Landau at The Actors Studio. Bottomline, it all depends how you get along with your teachers and how much they believe in you; on the other hand, if you happen to be under the tutelage of a far-and-few- between-genius, that is a thing of total beauty as long as you don't expect much coddling. Finally, it's better to be in a Kia Rio with gas than in a Mercedes on empty; so don't be enamored of the fancy reputation of a school or an individual, and should you wake up and find you're with neither a nourisher or a "brilliant," leave immediately and keep looking.
- I truly believe that MFA and BFA programs should have their version of the Dale Carnegie Course for actors in their programs. Talent is talent and business is business, and many actors don't necessarily have the most well developed social skills. Thank God that a number of drama programs are now incorporating "the business of acting" into their curriculum.
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