By Wonderwall.com Editors
8:30am PST, Feb 28, 2024
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During his four-decade movie career, Kevin Costner has made something for just about every taste, whether you're a fan of baseball or golf flicks, historic period pieces, romantic comedies, sexy thrillers, gritty Westerns or you just like guys who believe in "long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." (That line from "Bull Durham" basically caused an entire nation to swoon.) In recent years, after making dozens of movies as an actor, director and producer — and snagging two Oscars along the way — Kevin became a bona fide TV star as rancher John Dutton on the hit series "Yellowstone," a role that he left in 2023.
Still more drama emerged in May 2023 when Kevin's wife of 18 years, Christine Baumgartner, filed for divorce and fought him for a larger cut of his fortune as well as int he court of public opinion.
Now, in 2024, Kevin's gearing up to release his four-part big screen epic about the American West, "Horizon: An American Saga." Its first two films hit theaters in the summer. Kevin stars in the movies, which he also directed and co-wrote.
But there's more to Kevin than his eclectic career and complicated love life; he's also a country-rock musician, oil spill-cleanup technology expert, father of seven and more. Join us as we take a walk down memory lane with the actor.
Keep reading to see the major moments of Kevin's life and career in photos…
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Kevin Costner was born in Lynwood, California, to Sharon, a welfare worker, and William, an electrician who later became a utilities executive. Kevin has said he was a mediocre student who excelled at sports and enjoyed creative pursuits like playing piano, writing poetry and singing in the church choir. The family moved frequently when Kevin (seen here in an undated yearbook photo) was a teenager. After graduating high school, he earned a bachelor's degree in marketing and finance from California State University, Fullerton. It was there, at a frat party, that he met his future wife, who had a steady summer job dressing up as one of Disney's most famous beauties…
MORE: Hollywood's hottest leading men when they were young
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Kevin Costner began dating Cindy Silva in 1975 while both were students at California State University, Fullerton. At the time, she had a steady summer gig playing Snow White at Disneyland. "Cindy was Snow White literally," Kevin later said. "Snow White would never look at a guy like me — a little rat from Compton [California]. I wasn't Prince Charming. I had longer hair and wire-rimmed glasses." The pair wed three years later in 1978 when Kevin was 23 and hoping to break into acting. The couple are seen here a decade later in 1988.
MORE: Harrison Ford's life in pictures
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Kevin Costner got his first break in "Sizzle Beach, U.S.A." (originally known as "Malibu Hot Summer"), a 1981 independent film. It wasn't released until later in the '80s after Kevin had become a famous actor.
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Kevin Costner scored the part of Alex, whose death brings together his closest college friends, in the 1983 film "The Big Chill." The all-star cast, including Glenn Close and William Hurt, won raves… but Kevin ended up on the cutting-room floor. All the scenes he'd filmed were missing from the final version of the movie — except for this coffin shot at the funeral.
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In "Fandango," Kevin Costner starred alongside (from left) Chuck Bush, Sam Robards, Brian Cesak and Judd Nelson as college classmates who decide to have one last fling between graduation and the "real world" during the early '70s as the Vietnam War looms. The movie hit theaters in January 1985 and was the beginning of a very busy year for the up-and-coming actor…
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Kevin Costner starred in "Silverado," a movie about a misfit bunch of friends who come together in a small frontier town to help clean up a town that's under the control of a greedy ranching family and a corrupt sheriff. The movie, which also starred (from left) Danny Glover, Kevin Kline and Scott Glenn, was a critical and box office success — and marked the beginning of the actor's long love affair with the Wild West genre.
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In "American Flyers," which came out just a month after "Silverado" in 1985, Kevin Costner played a sports physician facing family adversity who competes in a cross-country bike race with his brother.
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Kevin Costner rounded out his amazing year of work — 1985 — with a rare small-screen appearance, appearing on an episode of Steven Spielberg's fantasy anthology series "Amazing Stories." Kevin played the captain of a WWII bomber in which a gunner (who's also an aspiring cartoonist) gets trapped in the belly turret of the aircraft and must rely on his imagination to escape certain death.
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Kevin Costner cemented his leading-man status as a naval officer accused of murder in the steamy 1987 thriller "No Way Out," which co-starred actress Sean Young.
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Kevin Costner proved he knew his way around a period piece when he played lawman Eliot Ness, who famously took on Chicago crime boss Al Capone — played by Robert DeNiro — in 1987's "The Untouchables."
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Kevin Costner played minor league catcher Crash Davis in 1988's "Bull Durham," a movie that won over critics and audiences with a quirky combination of romance, comedy and baseball. The athletic star generated major sparks with co-star Susan Sarandon, who played baseball groupie Annie Savoy. When he told her he believed in "long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days," audiences melted along with her.
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Kevin Costner starred in the 1990 romantic thriller "Revenge" with Madeleine Stowe. He was hoping to direct the film himself, but ultimately Tony Scott helmed the project.
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In 1989, a year after "Bull Durham," Kevin Costner pulled out his baseball glove again for "Field of Dreams." Kevin, seen here with co-stars James Earl Jones and Amy Madigan, played a farmer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield that attracts the ghosts of baseball legends. The movie scored three Oscar nominations — which would pale in comparison to his next project…
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Kevin Costner took Hollywood by storm in 1990 with his directorial debut, the epic Western film "Dances with Wolves." He also produced and starred, playing a Civil War soldier who travels to the American frontier and befriends a tribe of Lakota Indians. Keep reading to see where "Dances" landed Kevin (hint: it was the biggest night of his career!).
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Kevin Costner's 1990 directorial debut, "Dances with Wolves," was nominated for a whopping 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including in the highly coveted categories of best picture and best director. "I didn't do the Oscars correctly," he told Parade in 2021. "I reserved a restaurant for the night, for all the people that worked on the movie with me, because I wanted to just hang out with them. I didn't know I was supposed to do a victory lap. The next morning, I read in the newspapers, 'Ooh, Kevin Costner didn't show up to Spago.' But I didn't know anything about Hollywood! I had made about five movies in my career at that point."
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1990's "Dances with Wolves" didn't just dominate the Oscars. Kevin Costner also won a Directors Guild of America Award for outstanding directing in March 1991, beating out legends like Martin Scorsese and Barry Levinson — and proving he was now a force to be reckoned with behind the camera as well as in front of it.
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Kevin Costner starred as the folk hero who steals from the rich and gives to the poor in the 1991 film "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." While some critics had harsh words for Kevin's performance, the movie grossed $390 million and birthed the inescapable Grammy-winning song "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams.
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Kevin Costner starred as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in Oliver Stone's 1991 political epic "JFK." The movie generated controversy over its suggestion that the truth about President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination was obscured by a high-level cover-up — and received eight Oscar nods.
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Kevin Costner played a former U.S. Secret Service agent hired to protect a female celebrity, played by Whitney Houston in her acting debut, in 1992's "The Bodyguard."
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Kevin Costner is seen here with then-wife Cindy, co-star Whitney Houston and her husband, Bobby Brown, at the November 1992 premiere of "The Bodyguard." Nearly 20 years later, Kevin was one of eight people to deliver eulogies at the "I Will Always Love You" singer's funeral after her death in February 2012. He told mourners how despite her fame, the superstar had relatable insecurities. "You weren't just pretty — you were as beautiful as a woman could be. And people didn't just like you, Whitney — they loved you," Kevin said. "I was your pretend bodyguard once. And now you're gone too soon."
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Kevin Costner shed his usual good-guy persona to play an escaped convict who takes a young boy (played by T.J. Lowther) hostage in 1993's "A Perfect World" — and the decision paid off. He won critical raves for his performance in the film, which co-starred and was directed by Clint Eastwood.
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Kevin Costner seemed to be in full-on family mode in 1994 and frequently brought wife Cindy and kids Lily, Annie and Joe (not pictured) as his dates to red carpet events like the premiere of his film "Wyatt Earp" in Los Angeles. But later that year, the pair filed for divorce after 16 years of marriage. "My faith was shaken. No one wants their marriage to end, and it did," Kevin told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012. "You are going to see the people you love most, your children, only half as much. That's a huge loss."
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After a string of critically acclaimed successes, in 1995, Kevin Costner learned what it was like to make a turkey. "Waterworld," a post-apocalyptic epic set at a time when global warming has completely submerged the planet under water, did respectably at the box office but was savaged by critics. Keep reading to see how Kevin's next foray into post-apocalyptic science fiction fared even worse…
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Two years after "Waterworld" was almost universally panned, Kevin Costner's 1997 epic "The Postman" — he directed and starred — was even more poorly received. It "won" five Golden Raspberry Awards (aka Razzies) including worst picture, worst actor and worst director. Ouch!
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Another year, another golf movie. Kevin Costner (pictured here with Rene Russo) played an aimless former golf prodigy in the 1996 comedy "Tin Cup," which re-teamed Kevin and his "Bull Durham" director Ron Shelton.
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During downtime from his packed work schedule, Kevin Costner could often be found enjoying some of the sports he frequently played on screen — like when he hit the links with Tiger Woods in a practice round for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in January 1997. Keep reading to see the sporty star keeping company with another mega-famous athlete…
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For love of the game! Kevin Costner took to the court with Lakers legend Magic Johnson (who dwarfed the 6-foot-1-inch movie star) at a birthday party for Kevin the day before he turned 42 on Jan. 18, 1997.
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After his divorce was finalized in 1994, Kevin Costner dated a string of beauties including TV anchor Joan Lunden and supermodel Elle Macpherson. In 1996 he publicly gushed about Elle, "I feel I have met my equal with this beautiful, talented, funny and lovely person." The pair reportedly moved in together but the romance was over by the end of the year. A brief relationship with actress and socialite Bridget Rooney, the granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, resulted in the 1996 birth of Kevin's fourth child, son Liam Costner. Keep reading to see the one who stole his heart — and eventually got him to settle down…
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Kevin Costner first met Christine Baumgartner in the late '80s when he was still married. They reconnected after bumping into each other at a restaurant in 1998, sparks flew, and soon, he was squiring Christine — who's nearly 20 years his junior — to public events (like the Monte Carlo Invitational Pro-Celebrity Golf Tournament in October 2000, pictured here). They split in 2002 because she wanted to have kids and he didn't. "She said, 'I'm going to wait for you, but not long. When you come to your senses, come back to me,'" he told Parade in 2012. "And I did."
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As he began dating Christine Baumgartner, love was in the air for Kevin Costner on screen as well. He starred with Robin Wright in the 1999 tearjerker romance "Message In A Bottle" based on the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name.
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It's good to be the King! Kevin Costner channeled his inner Elvis, alongside co-stars David Arquette, Kurt Russell, Christian Slater and Bokeem Woodbine, in the 2001 heist movie "3000 Miles to Graceland."
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Kevin Costner got back in the saddle in 2002, starring in and directing the Western "Open Range," which was a critical and box office success.
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When Kevin Costner received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in August 2003, it was a family affair as he was joined by (from left) mom Sharon, dad William, then-girlfriend Christine Baumgartner, son Joe Costner and daughters Lily Costner and Annie Costner.
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Kevin Costner took a break from period pieces and sports films and signed on for the 2004 romantic comedy "Rumor Has It" co-starring Jennifer Aniston, Shirley MacLaine and Mark Ruffalo.
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Off the market again! Kevin Costner said "I do" to model-turned-handbag designer Christine Baumgartner at a wedding on his 165-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado, in September 2004. "Maybe it's the ability to say you're sorry," he told Parade in 2012 of what makes for a successful marriage. "I know that sounds so simple. If you're willing to tell somebody that you love them, are you also willing to say you're sorry? You need to, even when you think you're in the right." Their marriage lasted for 18 years.
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In 2004, 14 years after "Dances with Wolves" showcased the American frontier, Kevin Costner opened "Tatanka: The Story of the Bison." The educational attraction in Deadwood, South Dakota, included a 3,800-square-foot interactive center with exhibits, retail areas and a theater.
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Kevin Costner played a — wait for it — former baseball player in the 2005 romantic comedy "The Upside Of Anger."
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Kevin Costner and wife Christine, who had once split before tying the knot because the actor — already a dad of four — didn't want to have more children, welcomed their first child together, son Cayden, in May 2007. Kevin, seen here with Cayden in November 2008, would become a father twice more: son Hayes was born in February 2009 and daughter Grace arrived in June 2010.
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Kevin Costner… oil spill expert? The actor made headlines in 2010 not for his acting but for his work on oil spill cleanup technology. He was a founding partner of Ocean Therapy Solutions, which snagged a $52 million deal with BP for high-tech centrifuges that purify water by separating it from oil using centrifugal force. Kevin — seen here in June 2010 testifying in a Congressional subcommittee hearing on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two months earlier — later became embroiled in a lawsuit brought by actor Stephen Baldwin and others, who claimed they were duped into selling their shares in the company just before the BP deal went through. (A federal jury rejected the claims in June 2012).
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Kevin Costner has been getting in touch with his musical side since starting Kevin Costner & Modern West, a country rock band whose first worldwide tour was in October 2007. Kevin plays guitar and supplies the twangy vocals for the band, which has released four studio albums. He's occasionally joined on stage by daughter Lily Costner (seen here with him at an April 2011 concert in New Orleans), a folk singer who's dabbled in acting over the years. "She's not a person who is trying to angle how to go faster and go higher and go larger. It's just not how she's built," Kevin told The Huffington Post. "She has an amazing talent. Does she want to give it to the world? I don't know."
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Kevin Costner made a rare detour to the small screen — and returned to his beloved Wild West genre — for the three-part miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys," based on the American families' real-life feud, which was produced by the History channel and aired in May 2012. He ended up winning an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie.
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Kevin Costner played a fictional NASA supervisor in "Hidden Figures," the 2016 film that told the inspired-by-reality story of Black female mathematicians — played by, from left, Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer — who worked at the space agency in the '60s.
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Kevin Costner took on the first regular TV series role of his career with "Yellowstone" — and found himself with a huge hit on his hands. Set in the modern-day American West, the show follows Kevin's character, John Dutton, the patriarch of a family that owns the nation's largest ranch, as he faces conflict aplenty including drama with his four grown children and pressure from developers, Native American tribes and the neighboring national park. The Paramount Network drama smashed viewership records after it debuted in 2018 (its season 4 finale was the most-watched cable show since 2017, with more than 11 million viewers). The two-part fifth season debuted in late 2022. By the spring of 2023, Paramount had confirmed that the hit series would end after the second half of season 5 aired later in 2023, news that came in the wake of growing tensions between Kevin and co-creator Taylor Sheridan.
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"All the years, all the tears saying goodbye at airports as I headed off to do yet another movie… Hugs that never wanted to end," Kevin Costner said in 2015 while accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 20th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards. "My children have always been bigger than the movies. They've always been more important. It's because of them that I've been able to do what I love." The actor is enjoying parenthood a second time around with wife Christine Baumgartner — from whom he split in 2023 — and their brood, from left, Grace Costner, Hayes Costner and Cayden Costner, seen here at the August 2019 premiere of his film "The Art of Racing in the Rain."
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Kevin Costner played a retired sheriff who — alongside his wife, played by Diane Lane — will do whatever it takes to rescue his grandson from an abusive household in the 2020 neo-Western thriller "Let Him Go."
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In 2020, Kevin Costner told People magazine that living through the COVID-19 pandemic with wife Christine Baumgartner and their three young kids was good for their relationship. "Our partnership has really come into focus about what we do for each other and how we deal with our family," he said. "Our house is like a river: You've just got to get into the flow of it."
But less than three years later, the couple split after 18 years of marriage. In May 2023, Christine filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences." She and Kevin both asked the court for joint custody, and Kevin's lawyer indicated in his response that support would be paid according to the terms of a prenup. The actor's rep issued a cryptic statement when the divorce news broke, saying, "It is with great sadness that circumstances beyond his control have transpired which have resulted in Mr. Costner having to participate in a dissolution of marriage action…"
After contentious battling in court and the press, the pair settled their split a few months later.
Kevin and Christine are seen here in April 2022 at an OmniPeace Foundation benefit for Rock Rwanda — their last public appearance as a couple.
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A month after winning a best actor in a drama series statuette for his performance on "Yellowstone" at the 2023 Golden Globes — though he was unable to attend the January ceremony due to rampant flooding around his home north of Los Angeles that led to shelter-in-place orders — Kevin Costner (seen here at the 2024 Golden Globes a year later) started making headlines as reports of growing tensions with "Yellowstone" co-creator Taylor Sheridan emerged indicating that the future of the hit Paramount Network show was in crisis. In May 2023, Paramount confirmed the show was ending after season 5.
Later in 2023 — while in court battling things out with his ex amid their divorce — Kevin addressed why he left the show, explaining, "We tried to negotiate, they offered me less money than previous seasons, there were issues with the creative." He also reportedly wanted more time off to focus on making his four-part movie series epic about the American West, "Horizon: An American Saga," which releases its first two films in 2024. Kevin stars in the films, which he also directed and co-wrote.
