For a kid from the streets of Pittsburgh, Scott Glenn has a long list of indelible western characters. Tall Tale, Silverado, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, and his star-making turn as the convict cowboy of Urban Cowboy have shown that he is as comfortable in the saddle as in his more urban and, occasionally, urbane roles.

Currently before the cameras in the film version of Puerto Vallarta Squeeze, the latest novel by Robert James Waller, Glenn tackles the role of a dangerous man on the run, with romance complicating the zigzagging escape. Shot on Mexican locations, the thriller pairs Glenn with Harvey Keitel.

Another gritty Glenn starrer, this time teamed with Joaquin Phoenix and Anna Paquin, is 2003's Buffalo Soldiers. Other recent colorful Glenn characterizations of men of brutal strength include Martin Campbell's Vertical Limit and Antoine Fuqua's Training Day.

Glenn has been regarded as an actor of unique reality and power since director James Bridges' "Urban Cowboy first brought him to attention, and he has since been his highly regarded in such films as Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff, Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado, Robert Towne's Personal Best, Ron Howard's Backdraft, Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Jonathon Demme's Silence of the Lambs, John Frankenheimer's The Challenge, John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October, and Ed Zwick's Courage Under Fire.

A very grounded man for whom values of family and relationship to nature precede considerations of career opportunity, Glenn celebrated the success of Urban Cowboy by locating both life and family in Ketchum, Idaho, far from the offers and the hum of the movie indutry. He had determined to turn down those roles that would take him away from his wife Carol and daughters Dakota Anne and Rio Elizabeth during the girls' formative school years. With his daughters' primary education complete, Scott Glenn has returned to full-time acting pursuits.