Three days before his 89th birthday, Michael Emmet Walsh, one of the most popular character actors in US cinema of the last 50 years, has died . He died at Kerbs Memorial Hospital in St. Albans, Vermont, where he was hospitalized.
Born in Ogdensburg (New York) in 1935, he gave life to over 200 characters on the small and big screen, with gems such as Captain Bryant in Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott or the private detective Loren Visser in Blood Simple by the Coen brothers (1984). After enrolling at Clarkson University, at the same time as taking courses in Business Administration (the subject in which he graduated), he took part in various theater shows at the university. He then continued his studies as an actor at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts: his Broadway debut came in 1969 alongside Al Pacino in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?.
Physically imposing, with an ironic look and versatile talent, he made his film debut in 1969, with Arthur Penn's Alice Restaurant , giving rise to a succession of supporting roles, traveling between genres and finding himself acting with all the elite of Hollywood straddling the the generations. A path that passes through The Little Big Man also by Penn (1970) with Dustin Hoffman, But does dad send you alone? by Peter Bogdanovich with Barbra Streisand; Serpico by Sidney Lumet (1973), where he reunites with Al Pacino; Prisoner of Second Avenue by Melvin Frank (1975) with Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft; George Roy Hill's Hot Shot (1977) with Paul Newman; Brubaker by Stuart Rosenberg (1980) with Robert Redford who then wanted him among the actors in his directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980) and later in Milagro.
Without forgetting, among others, Silkwood by Mike Nichols (1983) with Meryl Streep ; the return with the Coens in Arizona Junior (1987); Joel Schumacher's Time to Kill casting Matthew McConaughey; Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann (1996) with Leonardo DiCaprio; PJ Hogan's My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), with Julia Roberts; Barry Sonnenfeld's Wild Wild West with Will Smith; Crossed destinies by Sydney Pollack (1999) with Harrison Ford up to Dinner with Murder by Rian Johnson (2019).
(Unioneonline/D)
