Rugged, blond, raspy-voiced leading man Max has lived a life a good deal more interesting than most of his roles, but as to exactly what that life has been, don't expect any biography to be accurate. This tough guy with soul has openly admitted to lying to the press from the beginning, creating a persona in which even he has trouble separating the fact from fiction. The old Hollywood public relations mill couldn't have woven a better profile than Nolte invented for himself, so perfect did the threads seem to hang on the talented actor, and the fabrication may well pass for truth forever.

Nolte was well into his thirties when he first received attention for his role as rebellious younger brother Tom Jordache in the Abcminiseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" (1976). Since that time, he has used his natural acting abilities combined with a brooding sexuality to provide a growly and charismatic center to a wide variety of films, and though the bad ones have outnumbered the good, he has given us glimpses of greatness. By 1991 he was the subject of a NEW YORK magazine article that called him the "dysfunctional version of the Hollywood leading man. Nolte is himself a recovering alcoholic and former drug abuser, who has been through divorce three times and a palimony suit once, and the misery shows in his work". He is one actor capable of playing large, mature, but deeply troubled men.

A regular in repertory theater and stock companies from the mid-60s, Nolte left the small screen behind after making his mark there, establishing himself in features in the late 70s, primarily as louts or hell-raisers in action-oriented roles. A hunk in the tedious adaptation of Peter Benchley's "The Deep" (1977), he fared much better as the drug-smuggling Vietnam vet in "Who'll Stop the Rain" (1978), the disillusioned wide receiver in "North Dallas Forty" (1979) and the beat legend Neal Cassady in the arty "Heartbeat" (1980) before making a commercial impact with Eddie Murphyin "48 Hours" (1982). Nolte also made a fine "Doc" in the film version of John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" (1982) and elicited a famous quote from co-star Katharine Hepburn during the filming of "The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley" (1985): "I hear you've been dead drunk in every gutter in town, and it has to stop." His response: "I can't stop. I've got a few more gutters to go."

Nolte drew on his experience in the gutter for a memorable portrayal of the bum in Paul Mazursky's "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" (1986), sharing food with the film's real scene stealer Mike the Dog, then suffered a spate of poor films to close out the decade (e.g., "Extreme Prejudice" and "Weeds" 1987; "Three Fugitives" and "Farewell to the King" 1989; "Everybody Wins" 1990). He was outstanding as the villainous racist, sexist cop, a muddle of insight and bigotry, in Sidney Lumet's "Q & A" (1990), but the sequel "Another 48 Hours" (1990) was a pale imitation of its precursor, lacking that film's originality and spontaneity. Nolte rebounded as the lawyer whose past (in the shape of Robert De Niro) comes back to haunt him in "Cape Fear" (1991) and scored an even bigger success as Tom Wingo in Barbra Streisand's "The Prince of Tides" (1991), adapted from the Pat Conroy novel. Nolte was perfect to play the wounded Wingo, accessing the private pain behind his eyes to earn a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination as Best Actor.

After turning in an excellent performance opposite Susan Sarandonas a parent struggling to find a cure for his young son's allegedly fatal disease in "Lorenzo's Oil" (1992), Nolte lent himself to a series of critical and commercial disappointments. In "I'll Do Anything" (1994), originally a musical but re-edited into a tuneless comedy, he played the only earnest New York actor left in Hollywood. In the basketball flick "Blue Chips", he portrayed a college coach (inspired by Bobby Knight) and in "I Love Trouble" (both 1994), a Bogie-like newspaperman-of-action romancing Julia Roberts He fared no better in a rare excursion into period fare, Merchant-Ivory's meticulously produced historical drama "Jefferson in Paris" (1995). Many found him somewhat miscast as revolutionary thinker and future president Thomas Jefferson.

Nolte starred as Max Hoover, leader of the 50s L.A. police detail, the Hat Squad, in "Mulholland Falls" (1996), a reprehensible and pointless hymn to murder and brutality. "Mother Night" (1996), adapted from the Kurt Vonnegut novel, offered the much more complex character of Howard Campbell, an American writer who lived in WWII Germany and worked secretly for the US government while publicly embracing the Nazis. The role had a certain resonance for the pretender in Nolte who related to its "In the end, you are what you pretend to be" mentality. After the disastrous "U-Turn" (1997), Nolte followed with two of the most compelling performances of his career in small films that epitomize his willingness to embrace intriguing scripts in lieu of a big payday. The charismatic womanizing husband of Alan Rudolph's "Afterglow" and the emotionally wracked loser who can never get his bearings in Paul Schrader's "Affliction" (both 1997) gave every indication that the best was still yet to come from Nolte.The actor returned as part of the all-star ensemble of director Terrence Malick's dreamlike, critically hailed World War II opus "The Thin Red Line" (1998), a role he followed with the less successful outings "Nightwatch" (1998) and the dismal "Simpatico" (1999). Continuing to search for offbeat, unconventional parts that pushed his limits, Nolte re-teamed with James Ivory for the director's chilly "The Golden Bowl" (2000), Henry James' turn of the century drama set in England and Italy in which he played a gruff expatriate American tries to maintain a surface of propriety despite the romantic betrayals both he and his daughter--with whom he is too preoccupied--endure in their marriages. The actor next tackled another legendary literary property, appearing as Henry Le Saber alongside Bruce Willis' Dave Hoover in Rudolph's noble but failed attempt to adapt Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" (1999), but that didn't stop Nolte from collaborating with Rudolph again, taking a supporting rol in the little-seen comedy "Trixie" (2000) opposite Emily Watson and yet again in the director's "Investigating Sex" (2001) to play the 1920s bohemian Faldo who assembles a circle of young men intent upon discussing sex on an academic level-until their two young female stenographers are draw into the frank and sexually charged discussions and romantic complications result. Nolte choices, while decidedly uncommercial, remained daring and challenging but he was also up for a high-profile blockbuster, taking on the role of Bruce Banner's father in director Ang Lee's psychological interpretation of the Marvel Comics' "Hulk" (2003).