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Lead actor with saturnine good looks and intense, brooding dark eyes, Peter Gallagher studied at Tufts University outside Boston, working every summer with local theater groups. After graduating in 1977, he landed a singing and dancing role in the Broadway revival of the rock musical Hair; this led to the lead role of Danny Zuko in the Broadway revival of another rock musical, Grease. Having played a '50s-type in Grease, he got a similar role in his debut film, The Idolmaker (1980), leading to top billing in his second movie, Summer Lovers (1982), an empty-headed film that prompted him to go back to the stage for a few more years. In 1986 he played Jack Lemmon's alcoholic son in Jonathan Miller's Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, for which he received a Tony nomination. He also performed (again opposite Lemmon) in the TV movie The Murder of Mary Phagan, cast as an accused murderer; this part led to a central role in Robert Altman's TV movie version of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988). In movies, his big break came in the acclaimed comedy of manners sex, lies and videotape (1989), which led to much better roles in films, including that of Tim Robbins's rival studio power-player in Robert Altman's The Player (1992).