Eric Roberts is an American actor known for his prolific career across film, television, and stage.

He first gained major attention for his role in King of the Gypsies, which earned him a Golden Globe Award, and later received an Academy Award nomination for Runaway Train. Over the decades, he has appeared in hundreds of projects, ranging from mainstream films to independent productions and TV series. Roberts is also recognized as the brother of actress Julia Roberts and father of actress Emma Roberts.

Roberts has long appeared on the Stuttering Foundation’s list of Famous People Who Stutter [1] in addition to being profiled in one of our 2005 Celebrity Corner [2]articles. However, in terms of appearances, what is most compelling is his more than 700 screen credits which makes him one of the very most prolific English-speaking screen actors of all-time. He received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in King of the Gypsies in 1978 and Star 80 in 1983. In 1985, he was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his critically acclaimed role as an escaped convict in Runaway Train. 

Some of his numerous movie roles have been Raggedy Man (1981), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), The Best of the Best (1989), Final Analysis (1992), The Specialist (1994), The Cable Guy (1994), The Dark Knight (1994), and The Expendables (2010). His extensive television work has included recurring roles on the NBC drama Heroes (2007-2010), the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless (2010-2011), and the USA Network’s Suits (2014-2019).

On September 17, 2024, the Oscar-nominated actor released his memoir, Runaway Train: Or, The Story of My Life So Far, which was co-written with Sam Kashner. Ironically, the release of the book coincided with his appearance as a contestant on season 33 of Dancing with the Stars. As can be expected, the memoir garnered a lot of attention in the entertainment media because of the actor’s relationship with his sister, Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts, which has been known to be strained at times. In addition, with the book’s release the same type of attention in the media was given to his relationship with his daughter, actress Emma Roberts.

In the memoir he opens up about rifts in the Roberts family and offers what he called a “public apology” to his sister Julia. He wrote that at age 15 when his parents divorced in 1971, he was heartbroken to have been split up from his six-year-old sister Lisa and four-year-old sister Julia when they went to live with his mother and he stayed with his father.

Roberts writes openly of his troubled upbringing with his parents, Walter Roberts and the former Betty Lou Brademus, both of whom were actors and ran an acting school in Atlanta. He has stated in interviews about the memoir that he did not write it to shock people. He is extremely open about many subjects other than his fascinating career, such as his romantic liaisons, his drug abuse, and his 1981 car accident that left him in a coma for three days and impacted his memory.

The actor strongly emphasizes throughout the book that his 32-year marriage to wife Eliza, an actress and casting director, who is the daughter of famous screenwriters David Rayfiel and Lila Garrett, as the positive and stabilizing force in both his life and career.

The 269-page memoir is an in-depth look at the modern entertainment industry with never-ending appearances of big-name actors, directors and rock stars. A full review of this memoir packed with fascinating information is not possible, as his struggles with stuttering of course must be the focal point. Several times in the book Roberts refers to his stuttering, the most compelling of which is the following passage:

“I surely never had friends growing up. And I know why – I had a terrible stutter. I was ostracized by the other kids, especially for the first three years I was in grammar school, which is kind of your foundation for how and when to make friends. At my first school where I went to kindergarten and first grade, we all had to read out loud, so I was laughed at a lot when it was my turn to read."

"Even today, I get really broken up when I think about that sixty-year-old memory of those kids laughing at me in class. I still get ripped apart. It had such a terrible effect on me. I know that’s part of what drove me to get out, to achieve something on my own, even to become an actor. I found that when I memorized stuff, I didn’t stutter! It was like finding the pot of gold. It was a gift, like getting kissed on the mouth by a beautiful girl when you expected a handshake."

"I remember discovering I could conquer my stutter when I first memorized a monologue. I don’t remember what the monologue was, but I remember walking around, reciting it to myself. I realized I could say it to anybody and not stutter, so I started reciting it to everybody: 'Hey, hey, listen! Listen, listen to this.' And I’d recite it perfectly. Wow. It was a big deal to me, a huge revelation to know that’s how I could beat my stutter, that’s how it could be done. Beating that stutter really changed my life.”

Runaway Train: Or, The Story of My Life So Far is the kind of book that any person who follows the entertainment industry will find hard to put down. The famed actor is brutally honest about so many aspects of his life, including stuttering. During the peak years of his career in the 1980s, he spoke about his overcoming stuttering during interviews in a way that gave hope and inspiration to people who stutter. Forty years and more than 600 screen credits later, in this memoir Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts continues to provide the same compelling inspirational message and remains a role model to people struggling with stuttering.

From the Spring 2026 Magazine [3]