Martin Sheen's work in "Apocalypse Now" enabled him to work with several of Hollywood's best.
With a career that spans nearly five decades, there are good odds that an actor would have the chance to perform alongside some of the other legends of the profession.
That certainly is true for the incomparable Martin Sheen.
From his beginnings in the 1960s through a film career that took off in the 1970s, Sheen has worked alongside some of the biggest names in film history.
His first major film, 1973’s “Badlands,” cast him with a yet-to-be-known actress named Sissy Spacek, who would go on to win an academy award just eight years later for her role in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
In 1979, the host of In Focus Martin Sheen co-starred with several legendary names in Francis Ford Coppola’s sweeping Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now.”
Sheen starred in the film with Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper, but the film also featured several actors who were not well known at the time but went on to stardom.
Harrison Ford, Laurence Fishburne and Scott Glenn also appeared in the film. Fishburne was a few years away from becoming well known, and in fact lied about his age just to get a part on the film.
Ford had just been introduced to the world in the run up to the film in 1977’s “Star Wars.” And Scott Glenn was a year away from his turn in “Urban Cowboy” and four years away from his role as Alan Shepherd in the film adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.”
In 1980, Martin Sheen shared the screen with a true great of American cinema when he starred with Kirk Douglas in the military-turned-time-travel adventure film “The Final Countdown.”
Sheen has also appeared alongside Ben Kingsley in “Gandhi”, Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio in “Catch Me If You Can” and most recently appeared alongside two-time Academy Award winner Sally Field in “The Amazing Spider-Man.”
The host of In Focus with Martin Sheen has had an astonishing career that has included brushes with greatness on his own path to legendary status in the film industry.
