A veteran of Chicago's free-form Organic Theatre, John Heard won the Theatre World Award for his performance in the 1976 play Streamers, and

He made his film bow as the correspondent for an underground newspaper in Between the Lines and in Head Over Heels, Heard again received top billing, this time as the obsessive ex-lover of Mary Beth Hurt. One of his first leading roles was in Cat People.

Heard was the father of Macaulay Culkin in the two Home Alone films; and was the business partner of Tom Hanks' in Big (1988).

On television, Heard was seen as the Reverend Dimmesdale opposite Meg Foster's Hester Prynne in the production of The Scarlet Letter, and was heard as one of the celebrity voices on the made-for-cable Dear America and Letters Home From Vietnam