Eli Wallach, one of the most legendary of character actors who embodied the very definition of the word(s), has passed away at the age of 98.
To call Wallach prolific would be understatement made manifest. He was one of the ORIGINAL "that guy" actors in the modern awareness, courtesy of a career of endless villains, weasels and amicable schmoes needed in the bottomless trough of Hollywood supporting roles. But he played each one with the import of a leading man.
The son of Polish Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn New York, he was born blessed with a face that eschewed the need for makeup or prosthetics, especially with a golden schnoz that allowed him to play New York Jews (which he was), Chicago mafiosos (which he was not), and Mexicans (he WASN'T?) with seamless legitimacy. He was one of the earliest professional Hollywood actors to utilize the method, and even got a chance to use it alongside one of the other, more notable early adopters of the technique in The Misfits (1960):
It was Marilyn Monroe, BTW.
His resume is like that. It reads like the Kevin Bacon filmography times 12. With a career spanning 63 years (he began his camera career starting in 1951 with numerous playhouse-type theater television that was popular in its day), there's no shortage of "holy shit" overlaps. And in that Mickey Rooney-length body of work, there were no shortage of standout roles, most of which considered no more than stock-character villains, but brought to life in uncharacteristically powerful ways for their time.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
In addition to Marilyn Monroe's (and Clark Gable's) last film, 1960 saw him in the first of one of these legendary parts that brought him to the attention of casting directors (and later auteurs) everywhere: Calvera the bandito in The Magnificent Seven, the American re-make of Akira Kurosawa's immensely superior Seven Samurai. In a production utilizing the manliest male actors of the day, egos of such testicular luminaries such as Yul Brynner clashed with the likes of Steve McQueen for dominance of the frame and screen time. For a cast that was essentially The Expendables 60 years before The Expendables, it's amazing that Wallach manages to hold his own and even steal the scenery from a cast of the leatheriest leading men probably ever assembled. But he did, and it took him far. Even in a supporting position, Wallach virtually commands secondary lead status. While his range may not have been the widest, his frantic energy and perfectly-timed facial transitions carried more weight than most Oscar-worthy gravitas.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (1966)
Perhaps no greater example of this is his biggest, and still to this day, most memorable role: Tuco in Sergio Leone's masterpiece The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. The third and final installment in the famed Dollars Trilogy, a trio of Leone-helmed westerns filmed in Italy (named 'spaghetti westerns' as a result) starring Clint Eastwood as the iconic Man With No Name, Wallach's intensity was the perfect foil for Eastwood's unflappable, laconic, squinty-eyed badass.
Wallach's universally useful face became an industry standard courtesy of Leone's patented method of using telephoto lenses for closeups, turning the actor's faces into landscapes, where every crevice, crease, pore and wrinkle was a cartographic monument of human emotion.
From here on, Wallach work came to Wallach unbidden, and in great volume.
Oh, did I mention that he also played Mr. Freeze on the original fucking Batman TV show? Bet ya didn't know THAT did ya?
The 1970s were a series of paycheck films, most of them of no great note (other than Mackenna's Gold or The Deep--perhaps even The Sentinel), thanks to the death of the western genre that had been good to him, but the 1980s were another story. Here, he hit his stride, playing the perfect "old-but-not-elderly" series of supporting roles that he always made his own, starting in 1980 with The Hunter, which reunited him with his Magnificent Seven co-star Steve McQueen in his final role (McQueen was terminally ill with lung cancer during filming and died shortly after completion).
He began playing a series of dignified heavies and upstanding characters, but he also established his knack for comedy, where his manic energy was pitch perfect for bumbling angry old men, such as Leon the retired and virtually blind hitman in the forgotten Kirk Douglas/Burt Lancaster fish-out-of-water mob comedy Tough Guys (1986).
Age eventually confined him to playing quieter, more sedentary characters who didn't have to do too many stunts at the close of the decade, and this allowed him to demonstrate the art of the quiet steal, where he used his endearing old-man flourish to perfection in numerous films, the first of which being Don Altobello in the less-than-perfect The Godfather III (1989).
"Trust me, I am-a olllld-a." ...No. No I won't Don Altobello.
Wallach followed in the tradition of other legendary actors of his generation such as Vincent Price, by staying current, and continuing to work in films that were not relegated to the Hallmark Movie Channel audience in the 2000s, although age visibly catching up to him in body if not spirit.
The Holiday (2006) with Kate Winslet and Jack Black
Oh, and here's picture of Wallach with Napoleon Dynamite himself (Mama's Boy, 2007)
This catching up is probably what put the brakes on his career in 2010, but before he left the active participation of the business, he performed in 2 pictures by 2 long-standing auteurs: Roman Polanski's The Ghost [Writer] and Oliver Stone's Wall Street:Money Never Sleeps.
The Ghost
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
I have a soft spot for great actors of the old days who work until the very end. This year, we've lost a number of them, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, and even Carla Laemmle, a grand old dame of the silent and early sound days who came back to acting 61 years after her last film, and worked in indie pictures until her death at the ripe age of 104. These are not good days to be actors such as these, or fans of them...but it is a good time to remember what made them worth watching in the first place.
Thanks for all your work Mr. Wallach. You've more than earned your vacation.
Note: As of now, Robert Vaughn is now the last surviving cast member of The Magnificent Seven.
To call Wallach prolific would be understatement made manifest. He was one of the ORIGINAL "that guy" actors in the modern awareness, courtesy of a career of endless villains, weasels and amicable schmoes needed in the bottomless trough of Hollywood supporting roles. But he played each one with the import of a leading man.
The son of Polish Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn New York, he was born blessed with a face that eschewed the need for makeup or prosthetics, especially with a golden schnoz that allowed him to play New York Jews (which he was), Chicago mafiosos (which he was not), and Mexicans (he WASN'T?) with seamless legitimacy. He was one of the earliest professional Hollywood actors to utilize the method, and even got a chance to use it alongside one of the other, more notable early adopters of the technique in The Misfits (1960):
It was Marilyn Monroe, BTW.
His resume is like that. It reads like the Kevin Bacon filmography times 12. With a career spanning 63 years (he began his camera career starting in 1951 with numerous playhouse-type theater television that was popular in its day), there's no shortage of "holy shit" overlaps. And in that Mickey Rooney-length body of work, there were no shortage of standout roles, most of which considered no more than stock-character villains, but brought to life in uncharacteristically powerful ways for their time.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
In addition to Marilyn Monroe's (and Clark Gable's) last film, 1960 saw him in the first of one of these legendary parts that brought him to the attention of casting directors (and later auteurs) everywhere: Calvera the bandito in The Magnificent Seven, the American re-make of Akira Kurosawa's immensely superior Seven Samurai. In a production utilizing the manliest male actors of the day, egos of such testicular luminaries such as Yul Brynner clashed with the likes of Steve McQueen for dominance of the frame and screen time. For a cast that was essentially The Expendables 60 years before The Expendables, it's amazing that Wallach manages to hold his own and even steal the scenery from a cast of the leatheriest leading men probably ever assembled. But he did, and it took him far. Even in a supporting position, Wallach virtually commands secondary lead status. While his range may not have been the widest, his frantic energy and perfectly-timed facial transitions carried more weight than most Oscar-worthy gravitas.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (1966)
Perhaps no greater example of this is his biggest, and still to this day, most memorable role: Tuco in Sergio Leone's masterpiece The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. The third and final installment in the famed Dollars Trilogy, a trio of Leone-helmed westerns filmed in Italy (named 'spaghetti westerns' as a result) starring Clint Eastwood as the iconic Man With No Name, Wallach's intensity was the perfect foil for Eastwood's unflappable, laconic, squinty-eyed badass.
Wallach's universally useful face became an industry standard courtesy of Leone's patented method of using telephoto lenses for closeups, turning the actor's faces into landscapes, where every crevice, crease, pore and wrinkle was a cartographic monument of human emotion.
From here on, Wallach work came to Wallach unbidden, and in great volume.
Oh, did I mention that he also played Mr. Freeze on the original fucking Batman TV show? Bet ya didn't know THAT did ya?
The 1970s were a series of paycheck films, most of them of no great note (other than Mackenna's Gold or The Deep--perhaps even The Sentinel), thanks to the death of the western genre that had been good to him, but the 1980s were another story. Here, he hit his stride, playing the perfect "old-but-not-elderly" series of supporting roles that he always made his own, starting in 1980 with The Hunter, which reunited him with his Magnificent Seven co-star Steve McQueen in his final role (McQueen was terminally ill with lung cancer during filming and died shortly after completion).
He began playing a series of dignified heavies and upstanding characters, but he also established his knack for comedy, where his manic energy was pitch perfect for bumbling angry old men, such as Leon the retired and virtually blind hitman in the forgotten Kirk Douglas/Burt Lancaster fish-out-of-water mob comedy Tough Guys (1986).
Age eventually confined him to playing quieter, more sedentary characters who didn't have to do too many stunts at the close of the decade, and this allowed him to demonstrate the art of the quiet steal, where he used his endearing old-man flourish to perfection in numerous films, the first of which being Don Altobello in the less-than-perfect The Godfather III (1989).
"Trust me, I am-a olllld-a." ...No. No I won't Don Altobello.
Wallach followed in the tradition of other legendary actors of his generation such as Vincent Price, by staying current, and continuing to work in films that were not relegated to the Hallmark Movie Channel audience in the 2000s, although age visibly catching up to him in body if not spirit.
The Holiday (2006) with Kate Winslet and Jack Black
Oh, and here's picture of Wallach with Napoleon Dynamite himself (Mama's Boy, 2007)
This catching up is probably what put the brakes on his career in 2010, but before he left the active participation of the business, he performed in 2 pictures by 2 long-standing auteurs: Roman Polanski's The Ghost [Writer] and Oliver Stone's Wall Street:Money Never Sleeps.
The Ghost
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
I have a soft spot for great actors of the old days who work until the very end. This year, we've lost a number of them, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, and even Carla Laemmle, a grand old dame of the silent and early sound days who came back to acting 61 years after her last film, and worked in indie pictures until her death at the ripe age of 104. These are not good days to be actors such as these, or fans of them...but it is a good time to remember what made them worth watching in the first place.
Thanks for all your work Mr. Wallach. You've more than earned your vacation.
Note: As of now, Robert Vaughn is now the last surviving cast member of The Magnificent Seven.
