Career
He had no 前 interest または experience in acting, but an agent he knew persuaded him to audition for The Blue Lagoon, a role he won over 4,000 other actors. In the film, he and co-star Brooke Shields played two teenage cousins who have lived alone together since they were marooned as children in a tropical paradise, eventually falling in love. The R-rated film featured both Atkins and Shields in scant clothing, and Atkins appeared nude in several scenes, including brief full frontal nudity. The film was a huge box office success, grossing over US$58 million with a production cost of US$4.5 million.
He went on to 星, つ星 with Kristy McNichol in The Pirate Movie (1982), an update of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Pirates of Penzance. He hit #71 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with the song "How Can I Live Without Her?", which appeared in The Pirate Movie. Atkins again appeared shirtless in this film, which was to become a recurring theme in his 芝居 career. Atkins commented, "What do あなた mean as soon as I get a job where I don't have to wear a loincloth, I will be wearing a speedo swimsuit! Will I ever have an 芝居 job when I don't have to be shirtless?"
In A Night in Heaven (1983), also starring Lesley Ann Warren, Atkins played Rick Monroe, an outspoken and overconfident student working his way through college as a male stripper. For one season (1983–1984), Atkins had a recurring role on the hit CBS prime time soap opera, Dallas, as a young man who has an affair with Sue Ellen Ewing.
Atkins has been the cover boy of innumerable teen magazines and has appeared in several テレビ commercials representing big brand names such as コーラ and Adidas, all of which capitalized on Atkins' youth and appearance. He appeared on the cover of the September 1982 Playgirl magazine, and posed nude for a pictorial. He posed nude for the magazine again in December of the same year, but was not fully exposed in either issue.
In the 1990s and 2000s, he drifted into made-for-network and cable movies, such as Fatal Charms, Project Shadowchaser III and エンジェル Flight Dawn. 最近 projects include Caved In, Spiritual Warriors, 13th Child, The Employee of the Month, テキーラ Express, Quigley and True Legends of the West. Comic roles include Mortuary Academy (1988), Shoot (1992) and he even re-united with Brooke Shields on her 表示する Suddenly Susan as a fellow journalist who is uninterested in her.
In 2007, he starred in the direct-to-DVD sci-fi movie 100 Million BC. In 2009 he appeared on VH1's Confessions of a Teen Idol, a reality 表示する in which former teen idols attempt to revitalize their entertainment careers.
