Earl Hindman

Wilson on "Home Improvement"

Earl Hindman plays Tim Taylor's eccentric next-door neighbor Wilson, whose voice of experience and wisdom floats over the backyard fence in response to Tim's questions about manhood and relationships.

Earl was born in the mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, where he and his family lived on the edge of the world's deepest copper mine. As a boy, Earl would haunt the local movie theater, where you could see two cowboy pictures, a couple of cartoons, and a serial, all for a dime.

He started acting in high school, and studied drama at the University of Arizona in Tucson before going to New York by way of a brief stop in Los Angeles, which was memorable for Hindman only because he was there when he heard the news of Kennedy's assassination.

Since then, most of Earl's professional career has been spent on the East Coast. He made his New York debut Off Broadway in "Dark of the Moon" with Rue McClanahan and Harvey Keitel, which started him on a string of stage performances. After working for a number of years on and off Broadway and in regional theatre, he landed his breakthrough role in 1971 in David Rabe's "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" at the New York Shakespeare Festival's Public Theater.

Earl's film and television career also began to flourish around that time. He had done his first TV role in the late 1960s, in a PBS production of Arthur Miller's "A Memory of Two Mondays." He also embarked on what would become ten seasons with the daytime drama "Ryan's Hope," and has since landed numerous roles in movies and miniseries, includeing ABC's "War and Remembrance" and the upcoming "Stay the Night," with Jane Alexander and Barbara Hershey. He also had a recurring role on "The Equalizer."

On film, Earl has most recently been seen in "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," starring Vanessa Regrave and Keith Carradine. His credits also include "Talk Radio," "Three Men and a Baby," "Silverado," "Taps," "The Parallax View," "The Talking of Pelham 1-2-3," and "Greased Lightning."

As for his role as Wilson on "Home Improvement," the closest Earl has come to playing a part behind a fence was when he played the wall (aka Tom Snout) in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He does, however, share some of Wilson's lone-wolf sensibilities, and twice a year or so, he hikes into the woods near his Connecticut home for few days of solitary camping. "On the third day," he says, "I get this intense craving for a cheeseburger, or a cigarette, so I hike ten miles back, having thoroughly enjoyed myself."

Thanks to Touchstone Television for providing the information.

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