Penn started acting at the age of 12 at the Loft Studio and made his film debut in 1979's
Charlie and the Talking Buzzard, starring Christopher Hanks. In 1983, he was featured in
Francis Ford Coppola's youth drama
Rumble Fish and appeared in the
high school football drama
All the Right Moves as the best friend of
Tom Cruise's character. He also appeared in the hit dance movie
Footloose in 1984 as the best friend of
Kevin Bacon's character; played a villain in the
Clint Eastwood western Pale Rider (1985); and co-starred with his brother
Sean Penn and mother
Eileen Ryan in
At Close Range (1986). Penn, who had a black belt in
karate, appeared in the 1989 motion picture
Best of the Best as Travis Brickley, a cocky member of the U.S. Karate team taking on the team from
Korea. The film also starred
James Earl Jones,
Sally Kirkland,
Eric Roberts,
Phillip Rhee, and Simon Rhee. Penn reprised his role in 1993's
Best of the Best 2.
1990s Two of his more memorable performances were in
Reservoir Dogs as Nice Guy Eddie and
True Romance as Nicky Dimes (both characters in scripts written by
Quentin Tarantino). In 1996 he won the award for Best Supporting Actor at the
Venice Film Festival for
The Funeral. In 1990, Penn was cast in a season one episode of
The Young Riders. He appeared as a villain who is killed by
Josh Brolin's character James Butler "Jimmy" Hickok. In
Robert Altman's 1993 ensemble film
Short Cuts, Penn played a troubled swimming pool cleaner who is disturbed by his wife's profession, a
telephone sex worker who takes calls from clients at home to which Penn's character is sometimes obliged to listen. This leads to very disturbing consequences. In 1995, he played a confused highway patrolman searching for a car with three
drag queens (played by
Patrick Swayze,
Wesley Snipes, and
John Leguizamo) in
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Penn appeared in
Jay-Z's 1998 music video "
Can I Get A..." as a bartender who mixes drinks and dances. He also played the character Clive Cobb in the 1998 film
Rush Hour.
2000s In 2001, Penn was meant to appear in
American Pie 2 as
Steve Stifler's father, but his scenes were eventually cut as there was insufficient time to include him in the film's plot. However, they appeared on the deleted scene reel on the DVD release. Penn then went on to co-star opposite
Peter Berg as the mafia brothers of Corky in
Corky Romano. He also appeared as a
fall guy in a criminal conspiracy in
Murder by Numbers, alongside
Sandra Bullock. In 2003, he appeared on the
Will & Grace episode "
Fanilow", as
Barry Manilow's tour director and a character who is interested romantically in Will. Penn was featured in an episode of the television crime drama
Law & Order: Criminal Intent ("
Death Roe") during the
2004–2005 season. He was also featured on the 2004 video game
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as the voice of crooked officer Eddie Pulaski. Penn played himself on a 2005 episode of the
HBO series
Entourage. He appeared in
The Darwin Awards, which premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival the day after his death. ==Death==