RIP to the wonderful David Huddleston, passed on at 85…
One of my all-time favorite character actors, the portly,
imposing Huddleston had a tinge of shadiness when he played good guys, and was
oddly lovable when he played bad guys. His acerbic line readings as cranky town
father Olsen Johnson in Blazing Saddles are standards in the Moorhead family, especially
his conciliatory “Aw, prairie shit” at the moment he at last overcomes his
racism.
He’ll be remembered, rightly, for that role, and as the
title character in The Big Lebowski, and as Kevin’s grandfather on The Wonder
Years, and as a gruffly honorable Republican senator on The West Wing, and
also, alas, for seeming somehow miscast in the title role of 1985’s Santa
Claus—The Movie. He ought to be more remembered for his supporting turn in Ted
Kotcheff’s fascinating, neglected 1974 western Billy Two Hats, as the marksman
whose gabbiness wears on the patience of sheriff Jack Warden as the two of them
stalk outlaws Gregory Peck and Desi Arnaz, Jr.
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