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James Todd Spader (born February 7, 1960, in Boston, Massachusetts), who is known to prefer being called "Jimmy", is a three-time Emmy-winning and Golden Globe-nominated American actor who is best known for his eccentric roles in movies such as sex, lies, and videotape (for which he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival), Stargate , and Secretary . Known for playing smarmy, sexually deviant yuppies, Spader got his start in Pretty in Pink. In October 2006, Spader narrated China Revealed, the first episode of Discovery Channel's documentary series Discovery Atlas . He has also done the voice-over in several television commercials for Acura. Spader currently stars as the popular lead character Alan Shore in the TV series Boston Legal , where he has reprised his role from the TV series The Practice . Spader won the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Emmy Award for his portrayal of Alan Shore in 2004 on The Practice and won it again in 2005 for Boston Legal. Spader has become one of the few actors to win consecutive Emmy Awards for playing the same character on two different series (another being co-star William Shatner as Denny Crane). Spader won the Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical for Boston Legal in 2006 and took home his third Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2007. Spader attended The Pike School (where his mother, Jean Spader, taught art) and Brooks School (where his father, Todd Spader, taught) in North Andover, Massachusetts. The Spader family lived on the Brooks School campus. Spader later attended Phillips Academy. Spader dropped out of school in the eleventh grade to pursue acting at the Michael Chekhov School in New York City. Before becoming a full-time actor, Spader did a variety of jobs including being a yoga instructor, busboy, truck driver, stable boy, and railroad-car loader. Spader met his wife, Victoria Kheel, a decorator, while working in a yoga studio after he moved to New York in the early 1980s. They married in 1987 and had two sons, Sebastian and Elijah. Spader and Kheel divorced in 2004. James Spader currently has plans to marry his girlfriend, Leslie Stefanson. Spader loves to cook, has very poor eyesight, and usually points out that even though his characters can be sleazy at times, he is actually a nice, friendly guy in real life.
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