David Arquette Biography

Actor, director, producer. Born on September 8, 1971, in Winchester, Virginia. Offbeat and unpredictable, David Arquette is known for playing a variety of quirky characters. He comes from a well-known family of actors, stretching back to his great-grandfather who worked in vaudeville. His grandfather Cliff Arquette was a comic actor and both of his parents have worked as performers. Older sisters Rosanna and Patricia and older brothers Alexis and Richmond have also explored careers in the entertainment industry.

Arquette was born on a commune in Virginia. He later moved with his family to Chicago before they settled in Los Angeles. In high school, he was passionate about acting and art. Arquette auditioned for several years before getting his first big break in 1990. He landed a leading role in the short-lived television series The Outsiders, which was based on the popular novel by S. E. Hinton. The book had already been made into a 1983 feature film with the same title, and Arquette played Two-Bit Matthews, a character that Emilio Estevez had portrayed on the big screen. Unfortunately, the teenage drama about rival groups in an Oklahoma high school failed to attract much of an audience and was cancelled after 13 episodes.

Also in 1990, Arquette landed a part in another television adaptation—the small screen version of the 1989 hit comedic film Parenthood. This series only lasted a few months before going off the air. He tried again in 1995 with Double Rush, a sitcom focused on a bike messenger service, but the show only lasted half of a season.

Arquette had better luck on the big screen. He made his film debut in 1992 with the now-cult classic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and began attracting some notice from critics. He earned positive reviews for his work in the western Wild Bill (1995), starring Jeff Bridges in the title role and in the romantic dramedy Beautiful Girls (1996), starring Timothy Hutton.

His big career breakthrough came with 1996's horror spoof Scream directed by Wes Craven. In the film, he played a goofy deputy trying to solve a series of murders along with a television reporter, played by Courteney Cox. The two worked together on the film's two sequels, Scream 2 (1997) and Scream 3 (2000). Arquette and Cox developed a relationship off-screen, and married in June of 1999.

That same year, Arquette appeared as Drew Barrymore's brother in the popular romantic comedy Never Been Kissed (1999). He and Barrymore played adults who return to high school—he tries to regain his baseball glory days while she works on a newspaper article about the experience. More comedies soon followed. The wrestling-themed Ready to Rumble (2000) was a box office disappointment, earning only $12 million according to Variety. The Las Vegas crime caper 3,000 Miles to Graceland (2001) and the mutant spider adventure Eight Legged Freaks (2002) did not fare much better.