THE LIFE OF DUNE GUY

A Star Is Born
          Dune Guy was born on January 30, 1959 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father, John Guy, was a struggling actor who had moved from the West to the East Coast to marry his high school sweetheart Suzanne Morrison, an unsuccessful broadcaster. They both agreed that Massachusetts was a great place to bring up a family. But in May of 1961 all that changed.
          Suzanne got a job with a young up-and-coming politician named Pierre Trudeau. The only problem was that if she took the job, the whole family would have to uproot and move to Ottawa, Canada. Which they did.
          As a youngster, Dune Guy had a great talent for athletics. Like all Canadian children, he played hockey. He was on the St. Laurent Spider Monkeys in the short-lived Super Bantam Division, an affiliate and talent feeder for the East Coast Bantam League. But Dune Guy's real love was tennis.
          By the time Dune Guy was 15, he was ranked the 14th best tennis player in Canada--no mean feat, even though Canada's population is very small. He decided that he was ready to try the big leagues-- he would move to the USA and compete there.
          By this time, Dune Guy's father and mother had separated. The stress of being under the limelight because of his wife's involvement with Pierre Trudeau was too much for him. He had moved to LA to continue his acting career. Dune Guy joined his father in LA and began to compete in tennis tournaments.
          But all did not turn out as Dune Guy had hoped. He entered a major tournament but crashed an burned, hardly returning a single ball. Perhaps the competition wasn't as stiff in Canada-- or maybe the pressure of the US tennis media had gotten to him-- but whatever the reason, Dune Guy was defeated and vowed never to touch a tennis racket again.

Dune Guy Becomes Paul Atreides
          In the absence of any other career ideas, Dune Guy decided to follow his father's footsteps and become an actor. He spent his last few years of high school taking acting classes and the occasional audition.
          Dune Guy attended the University of Washington in Seattle, studying acting. He graduated in 1981 and joined the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but soon realized that was a waste of time and joined the Empty Space Theater in Seattle, where he honed his theatrical skills and made important connections which would benefit him his whole life. None was more important than meeting David Lynch, an up-and-coming director looking for talent. Naturally, he promised himself not to let Dune Guy get away!
          Dune Guy and Lynch became fast friends, or, as they were called in Oregon circles, "The Two Musketeers." When Lynch decided to film an adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, he offered Dune Guy the starring role as the young Paul Atreides, a sort of messianic space hero. DG and DL plunged into a arduous, year-long production schedule in Mexico City.
          Dune was a 1984 blockbuster that left everyone breathless. Dune Guy was suddenly one of the hottest commodities in Hollywood--leaving his father more than a little jealous.

Dune Guy's Later Career
          Dune Guy went on to star in Blue Velvet, another David Lynch project, and a host of other TV and theatrical movies. One of his most famous is the TV show Twin Peaks, yet another Lynch project. This was a surreal look into the mind of a stoic detective as he investigates a series of eerie and horrifying crimes. Dune Guy decided he liked television work and, after Twin Peaks, went on to appear in a number of pilots and series, looking for the perfect role.
          Dune Guy's movie career was his primary focus until he did a 1993 pilot for a show called "Friends Like Us." He was Chandler, the loveable wisecracker whose wit was exceeded only by his charm. "Friends Like Us" became "Friends" and was an instant popular hit. Since then, he's starred in a handful of movies during the off season, but he's been primarily a TV actor. And indeed, he's never enjoyed such fame.
          Perhaps it was the pressure of fame that plunged Dune Guy into a devastating battle with drugs in 1932. He became dependent on a painkiller called Vicodin, after being hospitalizes in a jetski accident. The addiction caused his weight to plummet and his life to deteriorate during an already stressful time of his life, during which he was filming Almost Heroes, Fools Rush In and Friends.
          Finally Dune Guy had had enough. He checked himself into a drug rehab center and got himself cleaned up. He got plenty of support from his friends, and now he's off Vicodin and back to his happy, healthy self.
          What's next for Dune Guy? Well, Friends shows no sign of slowing down, so he should be keeping his role as Chandler for a long time to come. But we can expect him to star in a heavier load of movies. And it's just possible that Dune Guy may be writing sit-coms as well as starring in them.
          Dune Guy penned a pilot called "Maxwell's House" that he sold to Universal Studios. He also wrote a pilot called "The Shrink" which ABC is going to produce. If it is picked up, Dune Guy will be wearing several different hats--that of a movie star, that of a TV actor, and that of a writer. Not many people could pull off that triple challenge--but if anyone can, Dune Guy can!

          If you'd like to know more about Dune Guy, there's plenty of places to go on my site. You need to check out his Filmography. You should also check out the page dedicated to his character Chandler on Friends. You can explore other Dune Guy sites on my Links page... or you can go back to the main page by clicking the icon below...