Nicolas Cage (born January 7, 1964) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. He has also worked as a director and producer, through his production company Saturn Films.

He’s 44!

As of 2007, Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award as Best Actor in a Leading Role, winning the award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas.

Cage was born Nicholas Kim Coppola in Long Beach, California. His father, August Floyd Coppola, is a writer and comparative literature professor, while his mother, Joy Vogelsang, is a choreographer and ballet dancer who suffered from chronic depression. The two divorced in 1976. Cage’s mother is of German descent and his father is Italian American, with his paternal grandparents being Carmine Coppola and Italia Pennino, an actress. Through his father, Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the cousin of director Sofia Coppola and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. Cage’s two brothers are Christopher Coppola, a director, and Marc “The Cope” Coppola, a New York radio personality. Cage is a Christian, he was raised Catholic.

Cage, who went to Beverly Hills High School (the same high school as fellow entertainers Albert Brooks, Angelina Jolie, Lenny Kravitz, Slash, Rob Reiner, Bonnie Franklin and David Schwimmer), aspired to act from an early age. His first (non-cinematic) acting experience was in a school production of Golden Boy. He is also good friends with fellow actor Johnny Depp, whom he advised to get into acting.

In order to avoid cries of nepotism as the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, he changed his name from Nicholas Coppola to Nicolas Cage early in his career. The assumed surname is inspired by Marvel Comics character Luke Cage, a streetwise superhero. Since his feature film debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, in which he had a minute role opposite Sean Penn, Cage has appeared in a wide range of films, both mainstream and offbeat.

He has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, and won once, for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. His other nomination was for playing real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman’s fictional twin Donald in Adaptation.. Despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared with his more mainstream, action-filled efforts. In 2005, for example, audiences ignored two offbeat, non-mainstream films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man. Despite good reviews for his acting and nationwide releases for both films, neither found a significant audience. Poor reviews for the film The Wicker Man did not, inversely, create a hit; to further buck the trend, the critically-panned Ghost Rider (2007) was a significant hit, earning more than $45 million during its opening weekend (landing in the top spot) and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on 25 March 2007. More recently he also starred in the 2007 movie Next.

Personal Life:

In his early 20s, he dated E.G. Daily for two years, and was later involved with Uma Thurman. In 1988, Cage began dating Christina Fulton, mother of their son, Weston Coppola Cage (b. 26 December 1990); Weston appeared in Cage’s film Lord of War as Vladimir, a young Ukrainian mechanic who quickly disarms a Mil Mi-24 helicopter.

Cage has been married three times:

• Patricia Arquette (married on April 8, 1995 – divorce finalized May 18, 2001) Cage proposed to her on the day he met her in the early 80s. Arquette thought he was strange, but played along with his antics by creating a list of things Cage would have to do to “win her hand”, including obtaining the autograph of reclusive author J.D. Salinger. However, when he seriously started working through the list of demands, Arquette became scared and avoided him. They met again many years later and went on to marry.
• Lisa Marie Presley (married on August 10, 2002 and separated after four months in December 2002; their divorce was finalized on May 16, 2004) — the daughter of Elvis Presley, of whom Cage is a fan and based his performance in Wild at Heart on. He later said they shouldn’t have been married in the first place.
• Allison, a former hibachi chef, is mother to his son, Kal-El (born October 3, 2005). She had a minor role in the 2007 movie Next which he produced. They were married in a island off the coast of New Zealand. Kal-El attends the Baldwin school in a Philadelphia suburb.

Cage had a Malibu home where he and Allison lived, but in 2004 he bought a property on Paradise Island, Bahamas. In 2005, he sold his Malibu home for $10 million. In May 2006, he bought a 40-acre island in the Exuma archipelago which had been on the market for $3 million, some 85 miles southeast of Nassau and close to a similar island owned by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

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