50 facts about Kevin Costner, actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer

Kevin Costner's 50 facts.

1. Costner was born in Lynwood, California and grew up in Compton, California.

2. He is the youngest of three boys.

3. His mother, Sharon Rae, was a welfare worker.

4. His father, William Costner, was an electrician and later utilities executive at Southern California Edison.

5. Costner's patrilineal heritage originates with German immigrants to North Carolina in the 1700s.

6. He also has English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and other German, ancestry.

7. Costner was raised Baptist.

8. He enjoyed sports, took piano lessons, wrote poetry, and sang in the First Baptist Choir.

9. He has stated that a viewing of the 1962 film How the West Was Won at the age of seven had "formed" his childhood.

10. Spending his teenage years in various parts of California as his father's career progressed, Costner has described this as a period when he "lost a lot of confidence", having to make new friends often.

11. He went on to earn a BA in marketing and finance from California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) in 1978.

12. While at CSUF, he was a fraternity brother in Delta Chi.

13. His middle name is Michael.

14. He is not only an actor but also a film director, producer, musician, and singer.

15. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards.

16. In 2013, he was awarded the Honorary César.

17. Costner's notable roles include Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Lt. John J. Dunbar in Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard and Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel.

18. Less well-liked were the science fiction-post-apocalyptic epics Waterworld and The Postman, the latter with Costner starring, directing and producing.

19. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Miniseries or Television Film, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role as Devil Anse Hatfield in Hatfields & McCoys and starred in and produced Black or White.

20. Costner is the singer in Kevin Costner & Modern West, a country rock band which he founded with the encouragement of his wife Christine.

21. Kevin Costner & Modern West began a worldwide tour in October 2007, which included shows in Istanbul and Rome.

22. The group also performed at NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Daytona International Speedway and Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, NC.

23. The band released a country album, Untold Truths, on November 11, 2008 on Universal South Records. The album peaked at No. 61 on the Billboard Top Country Albums and No. 35 on the Top Heatseekers chart. Three singles ("Superman 14", "Long Hot Night" and "Backyard") have been released to radio, although none have charted. The single "Superman 14" has been made into a live music video.

24. A second Kevin Costner and Modern West album, Turn It On, was released in February 2010 in Europe and was supported by a European tour.

25. In July 2012, the band performed in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the 20th annual Telus World Skins Game in support of the IWK Health Centre Foundation, donating a guitar personally autographed by Costner.

26. Several of Costner's films have included a baseball theme. They include Chasing Dreams, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger, of which in the majority of those films his character is a former pro baseball player.

27. He has a home in Austin and sometimes appears at Texas Longhorns baseball practices and games.

28. Costner is a close friend of Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido from Garrido's days coaching at Cal State Fullerton, the actor's alma mater.

29. He cast Garrido to play the role of the Yankee manager in For Love of the Game.

30. He tries to attend every College World Series game that CSUF Titans plays in Omaha, Nebraska.

31. Costner walked-on for a try-out, but did not make the team early in his time at the university.

32. Costner was a partial owner of the Zion, Illinois-based Lake County Fielders independent baseball team in the North American League. The Fielders name was an homage to Field of Dreams, with the logo showing a ballplayer standing amid a field of corn.

33. Costner serves on an honorary board for The National World War I Museum in Kansas City.

34. In spring 2011, he recorded two radio spots for the museum that were aired on Kansas City Royals Radio Network.

35. Costner portrayed Jonathan Kent in the rebooted Superman film, Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder. Costner was going to have a role in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.

36. Full-blown movie star status for Costner arrived in 1987, when he starred as federal agent Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and in the leading role of the thriller No Way Out.

37. He solidified his A-list status in the baseball-themed films Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.

38. Costner's next success came with the epic Dances with Wolves.

39. Costner was named ceremonial Grand Marshal of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series' Auto Club 500 which took place on February 25, 2007, at the California Speedway.

40. In 2009, he was named the spokesman for NASCAR Day which took place on 15 May. The next day, 16 May, he and his country music band would perform in the infield of Lowe's Motor Speedway as well as participate as a judge in the 2nd annual Pennzoil Victory Challenge before the 25th Running of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.

41. He started dating fellow student Cindy Silva in March 1975, and their subsequent marriage three years later produced three children: Anne "Annie" Clayton, Lily McCall and Joseph "Joe" Tedrick.

42. The couple divorced in 1994 after 16 years of marriage.

43. He has a son, Liam, with Bridget Rooney, with whom he had a brief relationship following his divorce.

44. In 1996, he lived with supermodel Elle Macpherson.

45. On September 25, 2004, Costner married his girlfriend of four years, German-American model and handbag designer Christine Baumgartner.

46. The wedding took place at his ranch in Aspen, Colorado.

47. Their first child, Cayden Wyatt Costner, was born on May 6, 2007 at a Los Angeles hospital.

48. Their second son, Hayes Logan, was born on February 12, 2009, and their third child, a daughter named Grace Avery, was born on June 2, 2010.

49. The actor plays regularly in celebrity golf tournaments, including the PGA Tour's annual pro-am at Pebble Beach, California and the BMW Pro-Am held each April in Greenville County, South Carolina.

50. Costner is a member of Birnam Wood Golf Club in Montecito, California.