ACTOR · BORN 1952
Jeff Goldblum
- Born
- 22 October 1952, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Known for
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Jurassic Park (1993), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
26 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
All facts (26)
- #001
Jeff Goldblum is a skilled pianist who plays most Wednesday nights with his band, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, at the Rockwell Club in Los Angeles.
- #002
Goldblum's father was a doctor and his mother was a radio broadcaster. He has two older brothers, Rick and Lee, and a sister, Pamela. His brother Rick (who was four years old at the time) died of kidney failure at age 23 while traveling in Morocco. Lee is a real estate agent and Pamela is an artist.
- #003
He was engaged to Laura Dern (1995-1997).
- #004
He is the voice behind the iMac/iBook commercials for Apple Computer.
- #005
His surname is often mispronounced because of its spelling; on a talk show he noted that it is pronounced Gold - 'bloom,' not Gold - 'blum.'.
- #006
His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was of Austrian Jewish descent.
- #007
He has appeared in six films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Nashville (1975), Annie Hall (1977), The Big Chill (1983), The Right Stuff (1983), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Wicked (2024). Annie Hall won in the category. He also directed Little Surprises (1996), which was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film.
- #008
He can wiggle his ears one at a time. He demonstrated this ability on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993).
- #009
He trained as an actor at New York City's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse under the guidance of legendary acting coach Sanford Meisner.
- #010
Along with actor Peter Weller, he performs in the jazz group The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra at local clubs in Los Angeles, California. The two also appeared together in a band in the cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984). The group's name comes from a friend of Jeff's mother who visited the Goldblum family in Pittsburgh while he was growing up.
- #011
He has appeared in six films selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Nashville (1975), Annie Hall (1977), The Big Chill (1983), The Right Stuff (1983), Jurassic Park (1993) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
- #012
During the filming of Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), it took about two hours for him and his co-stars Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey to be made up as aliens. The trio also provided voices for some scenes.
- #013
He was a jury member at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.
- #014
On June 14, 2018, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6656 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- #015
He appeared in The Fly (1986) with his then-girlfriend Geena Davis and in Jurassic Park (1993) with his future girlfriend Laura Dern. In both films, each actor's character says that "Something went wrong."
- #016
He attended and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
- #017
In the 1970s he appeared as a member of a three-man gang in two Charles Bronson vehicles. His first role (also his first role ever) was "Freak No. 1" in Death Wish (1974), followed by "Thug No. 3" in St. Ives (1976).
- #018
He appeared with Laurence Fishburne in Deep Cover (1992). Early in their careers, both played thugs in the Death Wish series; Goldblum appeared in Death Wish (1974) and Fishburne in Death Wish II (1982).
- #019
In 1983, Jeff Goldblum played comic relief in two films, each directed by the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and in each film his character, out of his element in a rural area, carefully asks whether there are any snakes around. The films are Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (1983) and Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983).
- #020
In three films, Jeff Goldblum plays characters with a vomiting-related condition. In The Right Stuff (1983) he plays a NASA organizer who gets seasick. In The Fly (1986), Seth Brundle develops motion sickness and invents teleportation because of it. And in Independence Day (1996), David Levinson gets airsick. It is not known whether Goldblum actually suffers from any of these.
- #021
He was engaged to Catherine Wreford, a 23-year-old dancer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
- #022
He nearly landed the role of Dr. David Blume in Blue Sunshine (1977), but lost it to Robert Walden because the director thought Goldblum and Zalman King looked too similar.
- #023
He and his friend Peter Weller appeared in films by Woody Allen (Annie Hall (1977) and Mighty Aphrodite (1995)) and David Cronenberg (The Fly (1986) and Naked Lunch (1991)). He also played a member of a trio of outlaws in two Charles Bronson films: Death Wish (1974) and St. Ives (1976).
- #024
Jeff Goldblum is friends with Ben Vereen.
- #025
In the early 1990s, he appeared in several well-remembered advertisements for Holsten Pils beer in the United Kingdom.
- #026
Jeff Goldblum was born at 23:00 EST.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
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