Bud Cort (aka Walter Edward Cox) became a cult film star right out of the gate, playing quirky characters in such early-1970s films as Robert Altman's satires M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud, Roger Corman's apocalyptic Gas-s-s-s... or, It May Become Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It, and Hal Ashby's romantic comedy Harold and Maude (which paired off Cort with the 75-year-old Ruth Gordon). His other offbeat roles include the heavy in Robby Benson's Die Laughing and young Freud in The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud. Cort recently debuted as a writer/director with the comedy Ted and Venus.