American actor, producer, film director, and musician. Winner of the Golden Globe Awards (1991, 2013) and an Emmy Award (2012). In 1991 he received two Academy Awards — for Best Director and for Best Picture. Costner is one of only six directors in the history of world cinema to have received this award for a debut film. He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955, in Compton (on the outskirts of Los Angeles). Kevin was the third child in the family of William and Sharon Costner. His mother worked in the Department of Health, his father at a housing and communal services enterprise. Kevin's father also worked as an umpire in a baseball league. And Kevin himself played in the Little Baseball League and very much wanted to become a professional player. After graduating from high school, Costner, at his family's insistence, enrolled at a university in Fullerton, where he was to study marketing and finance. But already in his first year he joined the university's theater studio. Despite his new passion, he graduated from the university with honors. Although the profession he had chosen was not to his liking, he began working in the field of marketing.

Kevin married Cindy Silva, who was a childhood friend. To support his family and pay for housing and acting classes, he had to take on various jobs. He drove a truck, worked as a tour guide, and even worked on a fishing boat. And in the evenings he studied acting.

He got his first role in 1981 in the film "Wild Beach." This film was little known at the time, but after Kevin Costner became a star, the company Troma, which specializes in low-grade cinema, bought the rights to show it and re-released it, building an advertising campaign around Kevin Costner's name and trying to profit from his popularity.