Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage (born January 7, 1964) is an American actor.

Born Nicholas Kim Coppola in Long Beach, California to August Coppola, an Italian American writer and professor, and Joy Vogelsang, a German American dancer. In 1976, Cage's parents divorced and he moved to Beverly Hills with his father. He is the nephew of both Francis Ford Coppola and Talia Shire.

Cage changed his name early in order to try to make his own way in acting without benefiting from his uncle's reputation. He chose the name Cage after the Marvel comic book hero Luke Cage, Power Man.

He had a small role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) (credited under the Coppola name), most of which ended on the cutting room floor. His next notable roles were in the 1983 movies Rumble Fish and Valley Girl, which was his breakout role.

He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). He has developed a reputation for alternating roles in action movies with more serious character-driven dramas, as well as the occasional black comedy.

He has a son, Weston Coppola Cage (born 1990), by model Kristina Fulton. On April 8, 1995 he married actress Patricia Arquette. They divorced on May 18, 2001. On August 10, 2002 he married Lisa Marie Presley and filed for divorce less than four months later. They divorced on May 16, 2004. He married former waitress Alice Kim on July 30, 2004, in a private ceremony in northern California. He has another son, Kal-el Coppola Cage (born October 3, 2005 in New York City), by the latter.
On July 19, 2006, Cage bought the old medieval castle of Schloss Neidstein (see de:Schloss Neidstein) in the Oberpfalz region in Germany. His grandmother was German, living in Cochem an der Mosel.
In August 2007, Cage purchased a home in Middletown, Rhode Island. The 24,000-square foot, brick-and-stone country manor, on 26 secluded acres, has 12 bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms and sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean from its perch bordering the Norman Bird Sanctuary. Cage sale ranks in the state’s most expensive residential purchases, eclipsed by the $17.15 million sale last December of the Miramar mansion on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. The name of his second child, Kal-El, is also the birth name of Superman in the DC Comics universe. Nicolas said in a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest that he liked the name Kyle, but his wife wanted a more unique name. Cage is a long-time fan of comics and considers them to be the modern equivalent of mythology. He was once attached to play Superman in a film to be directed by Tim Burton. Cage even did costume fittings, but the project died due to budget and screenplay concerns. Nicolas was director Sam Raimi's first choice to play Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in the movie Spider-Man. (Apparently this was before he met Willem Dafoe.) Cage has a tattoo of Ghost Rider on his body (which, in an ironic twist, had to be covered with makeup when he played the character in a big-budget film adaptation). He has even created a comic book, with his son Weston, called Voodoo Child, which is published by Virgin Comics.

Cage is an immense Elvis fan.