Lance Henriksen

Early life

Henriksen was born on May 5, 1940 in Manhattan, New York. His father, a Norwegian merchant sailor and boxer, was often at sea, and his mother worked as a dance instructor, waitress, and model. His parents divorced when he was two, and his mother raised him and his half-brother Walter with difficulty, leading to time in foster care. At age seven, his mother gave him his birth certificate and told him he would always know who he was, then pushed him out of the home, though he did not leave until he was twelve. He reported being physically assaulted by multiple maternal relatives, including alcoholic uncles, and recalled that two uncles once tried to persuade him to take Methadrine and participate in a staged car accident for insurance money. He left school after first grade and was illiterate until age thirty.

Career

Henriksen worked as a muralist and laborer on ships, including time in Europe. Around age thirty, he found theater work as a set designer and received his first acting role because he built the set for a production. He taught himself to read around this time, putting the entire script on tape with a friend's help to learn his part and all others. He soon graduated from the Actors Studio and began acting in New York City.

His first film appearance was as an uncredited extra in The Outsider in 1961, and his first credit came in 1972's It Ain't Easy. He auditioned for a role in Dog Day Afternoon but received a smaller part as an FBI agent. He appeared in two more Sidney Lumet films: Network and Prince of the City. Henriksen had supporting roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Damien - Omen II, and co-starred in low-budget horror and science fiction films such as Mansion of the Doomed and The Visitor.

He played Police Chief Steve Kimbrough in Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, astronaut Walter Schirra in The Right Stuff, and Charles Bronson in a television film.

Personal life

In the early 1970s, Henriksen worked with potter Joan Stone doing pottery in her studio. He has been married twice: to Mary Jane Evans from 1985 to 1989 and to Jane Pollack from 1995 to 2006, with one child from each marriage. He continues to produce art, having worked as a muralist before acting and with clay since 1960. In September 2017, he set up a website to showcase his recent clay works, stating that he believes there is nothing as simple and beautiful as raw clay.

Books

Henriksen co-authored an autobiography with Joseph Maddrey titled Not Bad for a Human – The Life and Films of Lance Henriksen, published in 2011 by Bloody Pulp Books, featuring art by several comic artists. He also co-wrote the five-issue comic book To Hell You Ride from Dark Horse Comics in 2012, with Tom Mandrake as artist; a motion-comic video was also produced.