2. Synopsis
Born on March 7, 1956, in Canoga Park,
California, Bryan Cranston spent the early
part of his career taking on a variety of
commercial jobs and single-appearance
television roles. In 2000 he landed the
character of Hal, the father in the sitcom,
Malcolm in the Middle. His landmark role
came in 2008 as Walter White in the critically
acclaimed television drama, Breaking Bad.
The show garnered Cranston three Emmy
wins for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama
Series.
3. Younger Years
Bryan Lee Cranston was born in Canoga Park, California,
on March 7, 1956. The son of an aspiring actor, Cranston
spent much of his early childhood watching as his father,
Joe, live a disappointed life for failing to achieve the
movie-star status he longed for.
Eventually his father left show business, but his still-
inconsistent earnings put too heavy a strain on the family
and his marriage. At the age of 12, Bryan Cranston
weathered his parents' divorce. The crisis forced Cranston
and his older brother, Kyle, to move in with their
grandparents for a year. The two boys didn't see their
father for a solid decade.
In school, Cranston was a decent student and an unsure
athlete, talented but lacking confidence. "It was not a
great time for me," he later said. "I was really quiet and
unassuming and insecure. And my timidity pushed me to
the sidelines, literally and figuratively."
At the age of 16, Cranston joined the Los Angeles Police
Department's Law Enforcement Explorer Program. He
rose to the top of his class, setting his sights on earning a
political science degree and embarking on a career as a
cop. But when a guidance counselor said he needed to
add an elective to his course work, Cranston opted for
acting and quickly found he had a gift for stage work.
4. By the time he graduated from high school, in
1976, Cranston had denied any dreams of a job in
law enforcement and instead set out on a two
year-motorcycle excursion with his brother, Kyle,
in which the pair roamed the country, stopping
just long enough to find short-term work to earn
money and get back on the road.
The two brothers eventually settled back into a
life in California, where they both set out to
become actors.
5. Early Acting Career:
'Malcolm in the
Middle‘
Not holding the same kind of star-studded dreams
his father had, Cranston took on nearly any and all
work that came his way. That included Preparation
H ads and bit spots on shows such as Airwolf and
Murder, She Wrote.
By the late 1990s, Cranston had assembled a
respectable, low-key career. His credits from this
period include recurring parts on Seinfeld and King
of Queens. Additionally, he played Buzz Aldrin in the
Tom Hanks television miniseries From the Earth to
the Moon (1998), and portrayed an American
colonel in Saving Private Ryan (1998).
His profile received a big boost in 2000 when he
signed on to play Hal, the father of three
rambunctious boys, on the hit FOX sitcom Malcolm
in the Middle. The role garnered three Emmy Award
nominations (outstanding supporting actor in a
comedy series) for Cranston.
6. The peak:
'Breaking Bad‘
It was while looking for work shortly after the end
of Malcolm in the Middle in 2006 that Cranston got
his first look at the Breaking Bad script. The show's
creator, Vince Gilligan, had first met Cranston in
1998, when the two collaborated as director and
character actor in an episode of The X-Files. As he
began putting together the pieces for his new show,
Gilligan kept coming back to Cranston as the central
character, Walter White, a high school chemistry
teacher diagnosed with lung cancer who starts
cooking meth in order to leave his family with
enough money after his death.
Cranston has said that upon reading the show's
initial script, he was determined to play White,
because he felt it would change the life of
whomever landed the role. For Cranston, it certainly
did. Critics have hailed the show, which debuted in
2008, one of the best on TV, and it's landed the actor
three straight Emmy Awards for outstanding lead
actor in a drama series—making Cranston the only
actor other than Bill Cosby to have won the award
three consecutive years.
It's also led to higher profile work. Around the time
that Breaking Bad came to a close, in 2013, Cranston
was cast as Dalton Trumbo in a new biopic about the
blacklisted, Academy Award-winning screenwriter.
7. Personal Life
There is not much to say he lives in
Southern California with his second
wife, Robin Dearden. The couple has a
daughter, Taylor Dearden.
