With Rod Taylor in Zabriskie Point, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970.
The obits say Spradlin specialized in playing "authority figures," but his real art was in mixing you up about how you felt about them. His most chilling scene is of course as General Corman (the name is amusing) in Apocalypse Now; the cagey cat-and-mouse disclosure game he and Jerry Ziesmer's "Civilian" play with Martin Sheen's Willard at the outset...and then there's the odd, perhaps gratuitous interpolation he makes about the now-"unsound" Kurtz, about his being a "good," "humanitarian" man, a man of "wit and humor." Huh? As in North Dallas Forty around the same period, when his uber-Landry character brings up "Christian" football. A brilliant,invaluable character actor, like the late J.T. Walsh; not only shall we not see his like again, but it's becoming less likely that the movies can support his like.
Captain, I don't know how you feel about this shrimp, but if you'll eat it, you never have
to prove your courage in any other way.
Posted by: Mr. Milich | July 28, 2011 at 07:29 AM
According to FF Coppola, Spradlin came up with most of the dialogue for his character in the briefing scene, which would account for its singular flavor.
Posted by: DeafEars | July 28, 2011 at 09:29 AM
Was it common knowledge that he was a lawyer and oilman who retired at 40 and took up acting after sailing and the accumulation of graduate degrees proved insufficiently diverting? Because that entire (fascinating) Times obit was news to me.
Always loved the line in Kael's GODFATHER II review about how Spradlin "looks and acts like a synthesis of several of our worst senators." He probably could have become one, when you think about it.
Posted by: Mark Asch | July 28, 2011 at 10:58 AM
By Matt Taibbi's account (in GRIFTOPIA), his II character was, in fact, based quite explicitly on one of our worst senators.
Posted by: Jaime | July 28, 2011 at 01:23 PM
So glad you picked "Zabriskie Point."
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | July 28, 2011 at 03:57 PM
By all accounts, a good man, who lived a good life. Filled with adventure, experiences, shared with family and friends.
Another solid character actor who created a fine body of work.
God bless G.D.
Rest In Peace.
Posted by: Jimmy | July 28, 2011 at 04:15 PM
Having grown up in the South, I can vouch for the accuracy of Spradlin's characterizations. That football coach in "North Dallas Forty" was so realistic it still gives me the creeps.
Posted by: George | July 29, 2011 at 12:54 AM
www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-polly-platt-20110728,0,2838852.story
Another passing: art director Polly Platt, dead at 72.
Posted by: George | July 29, 2011 at 12:55 AM