Judd Asher Nelson (born November 28, 1959) is an American actor best
known for his roles as John Bender in The Breakfast Club, Alec Newbury
in St. Elmo's Fire, Joe Hunt in Billionaire Boys Club, Nick Peretti in
New Jack City, Billy Beretti in Empire, and Jack Richmond in the
television series Suddenly Susan.Nelson was born in Portland, Maine,
the son of Merle (née Royte), a court mediator and former member of
the Maine House of Representatives, and Leonard Nelson, a corporate
lawyer. His family is Jewish, and his father was the first Jewish
president of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He has two sisters, Eve
and Julie. He went to school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New
Hampshire and Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, and studied at
Haverford College in Pennsylvania, leaving during his sophomore year.
He subsequently moved to Manhattan to study acting with Stella
Adler.Nelson began acting in the mid-1980s, starring in Making the
Grade (1984), and in Fandango (1985) opposite Kevin Costner. It was
his roles in John Hughes's The Breakfast Club (1985) and Joel
Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire (1985) - and his affiliation with the
Brat Pack - that made Nelson a star (along with Emilio Estevez,
Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Molly
Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy). The St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) music
video - also directed by Schumacher - reached No. 1 in the US (1985),
and was written by David Foster and John Parr and performed by John
Parr; Nelson appears in the video. A subsequent article in New York
magazine, which focused primarily on the success of these films,
resulted in the term "Brat Pack" being coined.In 1986 Nelson provided
the voice of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie and
teamed up with Breakfast Club alumna Ally Sheedy for a third time in
Blue City. He also provided narration for Bill Couturie's Dear
America: Letters Home from Vietnam, a critically acclaimed war
documentary that featured a cast including Tom Berenger, Robert De
Niro, Willem Dafoe, and Matt Dillon. Film critic Roger Ebert praised
the documentary, and it maintains a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. He
starred opposite Burt Reynolds in the ABC Afterschool Special
Shattered If Your Kid's On Drugs, which also featured Megan Follows
and Dermot Mulroney. In 1987 he starred in the Bob Clark courtroom
comedy From the Hip, which co-starred John Hurt and Elizabeth Perkins;
he also provided a stand-out performance in Billionaire Boys Club, a
courtroom thriller based on actual events; his performance earned him
a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Mini-Series. In
late 1988 he played Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull directed by
Charles Marowitz at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, earning praise, as
did the entire production. Nelson closed the 1980s with the William
Lustig thriller, Relentless (1989), in which he plays a Los Angeles
serial killer being hunted by two police officers (Robert Loggia and
Leo Rossi); he provided a cameo in the Adam Rifkin road film Never on
Tuesday (1989) along with Nicolas Cage, Cary Elwes, Emilio Estevez and
Charlie Sheen; and appeared in Tommy Chong's Far Out Man (1989) with
Rae Dawn Chong and C. Thomas Howell.
known for his roles as John Bender in The Breakfast Club, Alec Newbury
in St. Elmo's Fire, Joe Hunt in Billionaire Boys Club, Nick Peretti in
New Jack City, Billy Beretti in Empire, and Jack Richmond in the
television series Suddenly Susan.Nelson was born in Portland, Maine,
the son of Merle (née Royte), a court mediator and former member of
the Maine House of Representatives, and Leonard Nelson, a corporate
lawyer. His family is Jewish, and his father was the first Jewish
president of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He has two sisters, Eve
and Julie. He went to school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New
Hampshire and Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, and studied at
Haverford College in Pennsylvania, leaving during his sophomore year.
He subsequently moved to Manhattan to study acting with Stella
Adler.Nelson began acting in the mid-1980s, starring in Making the
Grade (1984), and in Fandango (1985) opposite Kevin Costner. It was
his roles in John Hughes's The Breakfast Club (1985) and Joel
Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire (1985) - and his affiliation with the
Brat Pack - that made Nelson a star (along with Emilio Estevez,
Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Molly
Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy). The St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) music
video - also directed by Schumacher - reached No. 1 in the US (1985),
and was written by David Foster and John Parr and performed by John
Parr; Nelson appears in the video. A subsequent article in New York
magazine, which focused primarily on the success of these films,
resulted in the term "Brat Pack" being coined.In 1986 Nelson provided
the voice of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie and
teamed up with Breakfast Club alumna Ally Sheedy for a third time in
Blue City. He also provided narration for Bill Couturie's Dear
America: Letters Home from Vietnam, a critically acclaimed war
documentary that featured a cast including Tom Berenger, Robert De
Niro, Willem Dafoe, and Matt Dillon. Film critic Roger Ebert praised
the documentary, and it maintains a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. He
starred opposite Burt Reynolds in the ABC Afterschool Special
Shattered If Your Kid's On Drugs, which also featured Megan Follows
and Dermot Mulroney. In 1987 he starred in the Bob Clark courtroom
comedy From the Hip, which co-starred John Hurt and Elizabeth Perkins;
he also provided a stand-out performance in Billionaire Boys Club, a
courtroom thriller based on actual events; his performance earned him
a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Mini-Series. In
late 1988 he played Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull directed by
Charles Marowitz at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, earning praise, as
did the entire production. Nelson closed the 1980s with the William
Lustig thriller, Relentless (1989), in which he plays a Los Angeles
serial killer being hunted by two police officers (Robert Loggia and
Leo Rossi); he provided a cameo in the Adam Rifkin road film Never on
Tuesday (1989) along with Nicolas Cage, Cary Elwes, Emilio Estevez and
Charlie Sheen; and appeared in Tommy Chong's Far Out Man (1989) with
Rae Dawn Chong and C. Thomas Howell.
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