Judd Nelson

Background

Movie actor Judd Asher Nelson was born in Portland, Maine, on November 28, 1959. Nelson is the son of Merle Nelson, a court mediator, and Leonard Nelson, a corporate lawyer. Nelson grew up in a lovely home with his parents and his two sisters, Julie and Eve. The actor attended St. Paul’s School and Waynflete School. After graduating from high school, Nelson attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Two years later, he quit college to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Nelson moved to New York City and began taking acting classes at the Stella Adler Conservatory.

Nelson started acting professionally in the 1980s. He got his first serious role in 1984, in the teen comedy movie “Making the Grade.” In 1985, he got a role in the film “Fandango.” That same year, Nelson got two roles in two different movies that would change the course of his career and would bring him to stardom. Nelson was cast to play John Bender in the teen coming-of-age film “The Breakfast Club” and was also cast in the film “St. Elmo’s Fire,” along with several fellow actors from “The Breakfast Club.” That was when Nelson and a group of teen actors — Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, and Demi Moore — received the name of Brat Pack. This group of actors was well-known in the 1980s for acting in coming-of-age teen movies.

Nelson worked in a bunch of successful movies in the 1980s, such as “Billionaire Boys Club,” “The Transformers: The Movie,” and “Blue City.” Nelson has also appeared in T.V. series such as “The Outer Limits” in 2000, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” in 2006, “CSI: NY” in 2007, “Las Vegas” in 2007, “Eleventh Hour” in 2008, among others. He authored four books in 2013 which he released on Kindle titled “The Power of Speech,” “Nine of Diamonds,” “The Gig,” and “Water Music.” Nelson also starred in the Lifetime film “Girl in the Basement” in 2021.