Maury Chaykin

Born: July 27 1949

Where: Brooklyn, New York, USA

The hefty actor first attracted attention as Major Fambrough, the suicidal Union officer who challenges Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves.

The versatile player formed a band of traveling performers, the award-winning Swamp Fox Theatre Group, during his undergraduate years at the SUNY, Buffalo.

He later studied at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater, working with playwright Samuel Beckett on the only Beckett-approved theatrical adaptation of his novel The Unnamable.

His initial foray to New York theater proved unsuccessful, and Chaykin left after several years to accept a role in Toronto, which has remained his home ever since.

After acting in the Canadian films Highpoint and The Kidnapping of the President, Chaykin made his US debut in Death Hunt.

However, it was a small comedic turn in the hit thriller WarGames that opened Hollywood's eyes to his talent.

His towering, glowering performance as the titular not-so-sweet union leader in Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks garnered a Genie Award as Best Actor.

His talent for the outlandish made him right at home in modest-sized but colorful character bits in The Bedroom Window and Twins.

It was his fine portrayal as the crazed cavalry major who sends Costner to the frontier before committing suicide in Dances with Wolves that firmly established his reputation.

Chaykin won a second Genie for his inspired turn in Whale Music, playing a child-like musical genius who has retreated from his rock-star life to devote himself to creating a symphonic piece for whales.

He proved well-cast as Jessica Tandy's son, a soft core porn movie producer, in 1994's Camilla and went on to memorable work as a menacingly depraved politician in Devil in a Blue Dress.

Chaykin atypically played a choleric cuckold in The Sweet Hereafter before appearing as the owner of the Chez d'Irv diner in Love and Death on Long Island.

He delivered an outstanding turn as a dissipated underworld figure with a monstrous belly in Jon Amiel's Entrapment.

Chaykin appeared in the off-kilter comedy Bartleby and the action-thriller Art of War with Wesley Snipes.