With his portrayal of Bowman, an astronaut of the future, Keir Dullea achives two goals-to work under the direction of Stanley Kubrick and to star in a role completely different from anything he has done before. On the heels of widespread praise for his performance as the neurotic, tortured youth in David and Lisa, Dullea found himself inundated with film offers-all to play neurotic, tortured youths. Consequently he hesitated not a moment when Stanley Kubrick offered him the opportunity to enact the exact opposite of a disturbed David. As Bowman, Dullea is "tall, stolid in a way-square on his two feet, holder of two PHD's; an astronaut, a scientist and a pilot" - in sum, the new breed of man that the space age of 2001 will undoubtably produce.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dullea considers himself the nearest thing to a native New Yorker, his family having moved there when he was three. His screen credits, in addition to David and Lisa include The Fox, The Thin Red Line, The Naked Hours and Madam X.