Danny Masterson American Actor Born 1976 in Albertson

Early life

Daniel Peter Masterson was born on 13 March 1976 on Long Island, New York. He grew up in Albertson and nearby Garden City, in Nassau County, and went to Garden City High School. His elder brother Christopher and his half-siblings Jordan and Alanna also became actors. He later trained at the Young Actors Space in Los Angeles.

Career

Masterson began working as a child model at the age of four. By his mid-teens he had taken part in more than a hundred television commercials, for food and consumer brands, and he had also appeared in musicals. His first listed screen credit is the sitcom Roseanne in 1988. In the early 1990s he had a part in the family film Beethoven's 2nd (1993) and was cast as Justin in the sitcom Cybill, staying for its third and fourth seasons. Other 1990s credits include the series Sliders and American Gothic (both 1995), and the films Bye Bye Love (1995), Trojan War (1997) and Face/Off (1997).

The role that made his name was Steven Hyde in That '70s Show, which he played for all eight seasons from 1998. While it ran, he also appeared in the school horror film The Faculty (1998), the science-fiction film Star Kid (1998) and the vampire film Dracula 2000 (2000). With his castmates Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama he co-hosted a television special about the Woodstock 1999 festival.

After the sitcom finished, he worked mostly in comedies and independent films. Among them were Comic Book Villains (2002), Puff, Puff, Pass (2006), Smiley Face (2007), in which he had the second billing, the Jim Carrey comedy Yes Man (2008), The Brooklyn Heist (2008), Wake (2009) and The Chicago 8 (2010), in which he played the activist Jerry Rubin. In 2009 he starred in The Bridge to Nowhere alongside Bijou Phillips. He also guest-starred in the series White Collar in 2011.

From 2012 he was one of the leads in the TBS sitcom Men at Work, for which he played Milo, and he appeared in the films Alter Egos and California Solo the same year. He was a main cast member of the Netflix comedy The Ranch, playing Jameson "Rooster" Bennett, from 2016. In December 2017 Netflix announced that he had been dismissed from the series, and his character was written out. The Ranch (2016) is the latest title on his list of credits. In all, the records list 26 screen credits between 1988 and 2016.

Alongside acting, Masterson has worked as a club DJ in Los Angeles since 1997, performing under a series of humorous stage names. He once owned a lounge bar in Park City, Utah, and he took part in celebrity poker events.

Separate from his acting career, he was convicted in Los Angeles in May 2023 on two counts of rape that related to events in 2003. A jury could not reach a verdict on a third count, and prosecutors chose not to retry it. In September 2023 he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. He had denied the allegations, and his lawyers stated that they would appeal.

Recognition

Masterson is recorded as a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. His best-known titles by international reach, going by the number of language editions of Wikipedia that cover them, are That '70s Show, Yes Man and Face/Off. Face/Off earned about 246 million dollars at the worldwide box office.

Personal life

Masterson began a relationship with the actress Bijou Phillips in 2004. They became engaged in 2009 and married on 18 October 2011. They have one daughter, born in February 2014. In September 2023 Phillips filed for divorce, and the marriage is recorded as ending that year.