1. Jeff was born famous; the son of actress and writer Dorothy Bridges and actor Lloyd Bridges.

2. He made his screen debut un-credited as a baby in The Company She Keeps (1951), a story of an affair between a female ex-con and a man who is also dating her parole officer. The little dude played the role of "Infant at Train Station".

3. Jeff's Dad Lloyd appeared in more than 150 feature films, but bizarrely is best known for his role in 1958's top American TV series,  Sea Hunt.

4. Mom Dorothy, also known as "Dorothy Dean", wasn't as prolific onscreen – she was better known as a matriarch and poet than as an actress.

5. His older brother Beau, who is also an actor, was his surrogate father when actor dad Lloyd was off shooting.


Good company: the making of The Dude

6. Jeff grew up learning to act. His mom set aside an hour a day for "pretending" classes when he was growing up.

7. Too much pressure? Apart from an intervention-worthy period in his teen years, Jeff been pretty clean by Tinseltown standards, but is still rumoured chill out with a spliff now and then - perfect prep for his most famous role - as "The Dude" - in the Coen Brothers' classic, The Big Lebowski (1998).

8. Bridges may have a secret fetish for maids' uniforms. He met his wife Susan Geston when she was working as a maid on a dude ranch, where Jeff was shooting Rancho Deluxe (1965).

9. Jeff and Susan are still together and have three daughters.

10. Jeff has many talents apart from acting, the most well known of which – his musical talent - came in handy for Crazy Heart, in which he plays a musician with the hardcore blues.

11. Bridges also takes photographs – mostly on the set of movies – some of which are published in a hardcover collectable book called the "Pictures by Jeff Bridges".  You can check out other recent pics online here.

12. Jeff also draws cartoons, narrates documentaries, and sells cars (Hyundai) and batteries (Duracell) for spare cash when times are hard for Hollywood's rich and famous.

13. The Dude cares about the poor, though. He was one of the 80 musicians singing on 2010's Haiti-benefit recording of "We Are the World".

14. Before winning this year for Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges was nominated four times previously for Academy Awards – the last time in 2000 for The Contender.

15. The movies he's made that he personally likes most include American Heart (1992) and Fearless (1993). Never seen them. Well, the Dude's been around for a while.

16. He has played characters with the first name 'Jack' seven times, and with the last name 'Jackson' four times. His Big Lebowski character was named Jeffrey, like him.

17. He's a Beach Boys / Brian Wilson fan. Stoner! He also clearly likes the beach, and served on the American coast guard in his youth.

18. Some roles for which Jeff was considered, but didn't get, include:  Detective Sonny Crocket in Miami Vice (1984), Walkin's role in Deer Hunter (1978), and Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now (1979). Other near-hits he missed included Big (1988) and Kinsey (2004), as well as a role in Heat (2005).

19. The lead role of Jack in Speed was originally written for JB. However Keanu Reeves won the role of bus driver when the producers realised no actual acting skills would be required to play the part.

20. Bridges "burnt" include the male lead in the hit Love Story (1970) as well as the role of 'Hooper' in Jaws (1975).

21. Crazy Heart is his most awarded movie to date. The brilliant Big Lebowski only scored once, with a mere Satellite Award nomination for best actor. Jeff lost to the annoying Robin Williams for Patch Adams…
 
22. Bridges is involved in three upcoming productions: an adaptation of The Giver (a sci-fi written by Lois Lowry), as well as Tron Legacy (in post) and True Grit (in pre-production). His recent war comedy with a Coen-Brothers-Like cast, Men Who Stare at Goats, looks like fun. But you can't watch it in South Africa at this date unless you do that thing... The slogan? "No goats, no glory."

23. He's best buddies with Nick Nolte.

24! Jeff regularly updates his .com, where he posts pictures, cartoons, very short blogs in picture format and links to stuff he likes. He never really wanted to be a movie star: "I kind of rebelled against it. I resisted it. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a kid and was reluctant to go into, y'know, Dad's line of business."