Before He Was the Dude, a Teenage Jeff Bridges Sold a Song to Quincy Jones for This Classic Movie

The pipeline between musicians and actors is relatively short, carrying countless celebrities from one side of the entertainment industry to the other, including Jeff Bridges. However, unlike the hundreds of actors who decided to dabble in music after becoming famous for their work on screen and stage, Bridges started his career in music. Because his first “big break” was as an actor, that’s typically how we categorize the multi-talented performer: a dramatic and comedic actor.

But Bridges had some impressive musical credits under his belt long before his first major acting role in The Last Picture Show, including selling a song to famed producer Quincy Jones for a major motion picture at only 17 years old.

Jeff Bridges Struggled To Find His Footing In The Entertainment Business

Music might have been Jeff Bridges’ first love, but acting was his family business. His father, Lloyd Bridges, and older brother, Beau Bridges, were and are successful actors in their own right. Jeff grew up around the entertainment industry, occasionally appearing on his father’s shows, Sea Hunt and The Lloyd Bridges Show, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. If Bridges wanted to pursue a career in music, the opportunity was virtually his for the taking. But acquiescing to that specific sect of show business wasn’t an easy decision to make.

“I dug what an actor did, but it took me a while to feel it,” Jeff later said. “To truly appreciate the craft and the preparation. Plus, I was still playing music a lot, and I guess I had a hard time choosing. Was I an actor or a musician, or could I be both?”

Of course, whether or not it felt like it to the future Big Lebowski actor at the time, Jeff was certainly juggling both facets of the industry better than most performers his age could boast.

He Sold A Song To Quincy Jones For This Classic Film

At only 17 years old, Jeff Bridges successfully sold two songs to iconic producer Quincy Jones. “I saw him coming,” Jones would say decades later while introducing the multi-hyphenate performer at the Troubadour in 2011. Jones bought Bridges’ song “Lost in Space” for the 1969 romantic drama John and Mary, starring Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow. Bridges even sang the track, earning him both a songwriting and performance credit on the BAFTA Award-winning film.

John and Mary performed relatively well, flipping a profit at the box office despite the rather lukewarm critical reviews. Regardless, the film proved to be Jeff Bridges’ first major foray into being a professional musician. The man behind his big break, Quincy Jones, described Jeff and his brother, Beau Bridges, as “the stuff” during Jeff’s Troubadour appearance. Although Jeff enjoyed a prolific and varied acting career starting in the 1970s and on, he made a subtle transition back to music around 2000, which eventually led to that Los Angeles concert in 2011.

(He ended that show with a rendition of Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me,” famously featured in The Big Lebowski, because, well, he is The Dude, after all.)

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