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Jeff Dowd

Born: 20-Nov-1949
Birthplace: Oakland, CA

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Film/TV Producer
Party Affiliation: Democratic

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: The Dude

Jeff Dowd dresses casually, drinks a lot of White Russians, and prefers to be called "The Dude". That or His Dudeness, Duder, or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing.

In the late 1960s he was a member of the Seattle Liberation Front, an anti-war group, and one of the so-called "Seattle Seven", charged with conspiracy to riot after some teenagers in the crowd at a protest pelted police with rocks and paint bombs. The evidence against Dowd and other protest organizers was scant and the case ended in a mistrial, but he was jailed for six months after being found in contempt of court. When released from McNeil Island Federal Prison, a reporter asked his plans and he said he would "launch a counterculture to oppose short hair".

Instead he went to work for Seven Gables, a Seattle-area chain of art house movie theaters, where he rose to head of publicity and helped organize the now-annual Seattle International Film Festival. He later relocated to Los Angeles, where he started a film production company, Jeff Dowd & Associates. His credits include FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Zebrahead, and The Dude's Dos and Don'ts, a video offering advice on screenwriting.

He met Joel and Ethan Coen in 1985, while doing publicity work for their breakthrough film, Blood Simple, and eventually he became the inspiration for Jeff Bridges' character, "The Dude", in the Coen brothers' 1998 stoner noir classic The Big Lebowski. "The body language was 100% me," The Dude explains. "When my daughter saw the film she said, 'Daddy, where did they get your clothes?'" For at least several years he has been writing an autobiography, to be titled The Dude Abides.

Father: Douglas Dowd (historian)
Mother: Anna Dowd

    Jeff Dowd & Associates
    Students for a Democratic Society
    Sundance Institute Advisory Board
    Conspiracy Mistrial on 17 counts (1970)
    Contempt of Court Jailed for six months (1970)
    Risk Factors: Marijuana

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Someone to Love (19-Sep-1987)

Official Website:
http://www.jeffdowd.com/


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