Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with a well-received performance in King of the Gypsies (1978), for which he earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year – Actor. He went on to earn a second Golden Globe nomination for portraying Paul Snider in Star 80, as well as Globe and Academy Award nominations for his supporting role in Runaway Train (1985). Through the 1990s and 2000s he maintained dramatic film and TV film roles while appearing in TV series. His TV work includes three seasons with the sitcom Less than Perfect and a recurring role on the NBC drama Heroes. His sisters Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan, and daughter Emma Roberts, also have acting careers. He achieved recent recognition for his feat of acting in over 150 films between 2013 and 2015.

Early life

Roberts was born in Biloxi, Mississippi to Betty Lou Bredemus (1934-2015) and Walter Grady Roberts (1933-1977), one-time actors and playwrights, who met while touring a production of George Washington Slept Here for the armed forces. In 1963, they co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia, off Juniper Street in Midtown. They ran a children's acting school in Decatur, Georgia while they were expecting Julia. Roberts' mother became a church secretary and real estate agent, and his father, a vacuum cleaner salesman. Roberts' younger siblings, Julia Roberts (from whom he was estranged until 2004) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors.

Eric Arthur Roberts (18 June 1907 - 17 or 18 December 1972) was an MI5 agent during the Second World War under the alias Jack King. By posing as a Gestapo agent, and infiltrating fascist groups in the UK, Roberts was able to prevent secret information finding its way to Germany. Roberts continued to work for the security services after the war, notably in Vienna, but it was a time of great anxiety in the services due to the suspicions surrounding double agents such as the Cambridge Five. Roberts never felt completely accepted by MI5 due to his different social background, and moving to a less active desk role did not suit him so well as his wartime role.

Early life

Roberts was born in Wivelsfield in June 1907, the son of Percival Arthur Garfield Roberts and his wife Maud (née Green). At the time of the 1911 census, the family was living in Penzance, where his father worked for the Western Union Cable Company. Eric eventually settled with his family in Epsom.

He became a bank clerk in the Euston Road branch of the Westminster Bank in London. He spoke fluent Spanish and some German following holidays there in 1932 and 1934. He married Alice Lilian Audrey Sprague (born 1900 Droylesden, Lancashire), the daughter of William Sprague, a railway civil engineer, and his wife Margaret, in spring 1934.

Gym Class Heroes is an American hip hop-rap rock band from Geneva, New York, United States. The group formed in 1997 when Travie McCoy met drummer Matt McGinley during their high school gym class. The band's music displays a wide variety of influences, including hip hop, rock, funk, and reggae. After the addition of guitarist Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo and bassist Eric Roberts in 2003, the group was signed to Fueled by Ramen and Decaydance Records (Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz's independent record label), on which they released their debut album, The Papercut Chronicles. The group gained a strong fanbase while promoting the album, appearing at festivals such as The Bamboozle and Warped Tour.

In 2006, the group released the gold-selling album As Cruel as School Children. Since that release, the band's single "Cupid's Chokehold" reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Clothes Off!!" peaked at No. 5 in the United Kingdom. On September 9, 2008, Gym Class Heroes released their third album, The Quilt, which contained numerous collaborations with other artists. The band went on hiatus in 2009, a time in which the members pursued various side projects. McCoy released his solo debut album Lazarus in June 2010. Lumumba-Kasongo has been working on his side-project Soul, while McGinley now drums in the rock group Kill the Frontman. The group released The Papercut Chronicles II on November 15, 2011. It has since become one of their most successful albums to date.