The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (60 page)

The directing could yet become his big thing. Still, for the moment he is our best sickly psychopath: he had been doing bit parts for several years already before he began to attract notice in
Parting Glances
(86, Bill Sherwood);
Mystery Train
(89, Jim Jarmusch);
Slaves of New York
(89, James Ivory);
King of New York
(90, Abel Ferrara); Mink in
Miller’s Crossing
(90, Joel and Ethan Coen); the hood who tries to shoot Nicole Kidman in
Billy Bathgate
(91, Robert Benton);
Barton Fink
(91, Coen);
In the Soup
(92, Alexander Rockwell); Mr. Pink in
Reservoir Dogs
(92, Quentin Tarantino);
CrissCross
(92, Chris Menges);
Rising Sun
(93, Philip Kaufman).

He was in
The Hudsucker Proxy
(94, Coen);
Somebody to Love
(94, Rockwell);
Pulp Fiction
(94, Tarantino); the harassed filmmaker in
Living in Oblivion
(95, Tom DiCillo);
Dead Man
(95, Jarmusch);
Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead
(95, Gary Fleder);
Desperado
(95, Robert Rodriguez); not willing to debate the matter in
Fargo
(96, Coen);
The Search for One-Eyed Jimmy
(96, Sam Henry Kass);
Escape from L.A
. (96, John Carpenter);
Kansas City
(96, Robert Altman); the Marietta Mangler in
Con Air
(97, Simon West);
The Real Blonde
(98, DiCillo);
The Wedding Singer
(98, Frank Coraci); Donny in
The Big Lebowski
(98, Coen).

Armageddon
(98, Michael Bay) was one of his few mainstream films, but he reestablished his below-ground credentials with
The Impostors
(98, Stanley Tucci); a homeless guy in
Big Daddy
(99, Dennis Dugan);
28 Days
(00, Betty Thomas); and Seymour in
Ghost World
(01, Terry Zwigoff).

He is established now as a favorite character actor:
Double Whammy
(01, DiCillo);
The Grey Zone
(01, Tim Blake Nelson);
Domestic Disturbance
(01, Harold Becker);
Forest Hills Bob
(01, Robert Downey Sr.);
The Laramie Project
(02, Moisés Kaufman);
Love in the Time of Money
(02, Peter Mattei);
13 Moons
(02, Rockwell);
Mr. Deeds
(02, Steven Brill);
Spy Kids 2
(02, Rodriguez);
Deadrockstar
(02, Mark Boon Jr.);
Big Fish
(03, Tim Burton);
Coffee and Cigarettes
(03, Jarmusch); a role in
The Sopranos
(04).

He continues to direct and works very hard:
The Island
(05, Bay);
Art School Confidential
(06, Zwigoff);
I Think I Love My Wife
(07, Chris Rock); in the “Tuileries” episode from
Paris Je T’Aime
(07, the Coen brothers);
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
(07, Dennis Dugan);
Delirious
(07, DiCillo);
Romance & Cigarettes
(07, John Turturro); a role on
30 Rock; Rage
(09, Sally Potter); nominated for a German Film Award in
John Rabe
(09, Florian Gallenberger).

David Butler
(1894–1979), b. San Francisco, California
1927:
High School Hero; Win That Girl; Masked Emotions
(codirected with Kenneth Hawks). 1928:
The News Parade; Prep and Pep
. 1929:
William Fox Movietone Follies of 1929; Chasing Through Europe
(codirected with Alfred Werker);
Sunny Side Up
. 1930:
Just Imagine; High Society Blues
. 1931:
Delicious; A Connecticut Yankee; Down to Earth; Handle With Care; Hold Me Tight
. 1932:
Business and Pleasure
. 1933:
My Weakness
. 1934:
Bottoms Up; Handy Andy; Have a Heart; Bright Eyes
. 1935:
The Little Colonel; The Littlest Rebel; Doubting Thomas
. 1936:
Captain January; White Fang; Pigskin Parade
. 1937:
You’re a Sweetheart; Ali Baba Goes to Town
. 1938:
Kentucky; Three Men and a Girl; They’re Off
. 1939:
East Side of Heaven; That’s Right, You’re Wrong
. 1940:
If I Had My Way; You’ll Find Out
. 1941:
Caught in the Draft; Playmates
. 1942:
Road to Morocco; They Got Me Covered
. 1943:
Thank Your Lucky Stars
. 1944:
Shine on Harvest Moon; The Princess and the Pirate
. 1946:
San Antonio
(codirected with Raoul Walsh);
The Time, the Place and the Girl; Two Guys from Milwaukee
. 1947:
My Wild Irish Rose
. 1948:
Two Guys from Texas
. 1949:
Look for the Silver Lining; It’s a Great Feeling; John Loves Mary; The Story of Seabiscuit
. 1950:
Tea for Two; The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady
. 1951:
Painting the Clouds with Sunshine; Lullaby of Broadway
. 1952:
Where’s Charley?; April in Paris
. 1953:
By the Light of the Silvery Moon; Calamity Jane
. 1954:
The Command; King Richard and the Crusaders
. 1955:
Jump Into Hell; Glory; The Right Approach
. 1956:
The Girl He Left Behind
. 1967:
C’mon, Let’s Live a Little
.

Having worked as a stage actor, Butler joined Thomas Ince in 1913 and moved on to D. W. Griffith and acted in
The Greatest Thing in Life
(18) and
The Girl Who Stayed at Home
(19). He continued acting until 1927:
The Sky Pilot
(21, King Vidor);
According to Hoyle
(22, W. S. Van Dyke), made for his own production company;
The Wise Kid
(22, Tod Browning);
Desire
(23, Rowland V. Lee);
The Narrow Street
(24, William Beaudine);
Code of the West
(25, William K. Howard);
Havoc
(25, Lee);
Wages for Wives
(25, Frank Borzage);
The Blue Eagle
(26, John Ford); and
Seventh Heaven
(27, Borzage).

As a director, Butler served long in the cause of wholesomeness, usually in the form of second-class musicals. At Fox, Paramount, and Warners, he handled the bland energies of Shirley Temple, Bing Crosby, and Doris Day without any aside other than the good-natured digs at Jack Carson in
It’s a Great Feeling
, in which Butler himself appears, declining to direct that resident Warners ham. It spoke for durability that in the mid-1950s Butler even moved into wide-screen action films.

Gabriel Byrne
, b. Dublin, Ireland, 1950
Somehow, I always have the urge to reach out and tickle Gabriel Byrne. I think it’s because his uncommon aura of gloom and sadness seems so complete it likely masks a teaser or a practical joker. But looking the way he does, how is he ever going to get cast in comedy—especially when films incline so naturally towards ruined priests, morose gangsters, and depressed terrorists? And, truth to tell, he did the poker-faced, life-is-short routine so superbly in
Miller’s Crossing
(90, Joel and Ethan Coen) that he might as well laugh sometimes. That’s not just his best film, it’s one of the best performances in American film—the whole melancholy routine. And too much sadness will weaken you. I am also tempted by the legend that his sour, stoic gaze set firm after
The Usual Suspects
, in which he had been led to believe that his character was Keyser Soze.

There are reference books that say, before acting, he taught Spanish to girls—so don’t tell me he doesn’t see a joke. He played at the Abbey Theatre, and is constitutionally Irish still, no matter that he seems to reside in Southern California and was once married to Ellen Barkin. Surely she made him smile.

He was in
The Outsider
(79, Tony Luraschi);
Excalibur
(81, John Boorman);
The Keep
(83, Michael Mann);
Wagner
(83, Tony Palmer);
Hanna K
. (83, Costa-Gavras);
Defence of the Realm
(85, David Drury); as Byron in
Gothic
(86, Ken Russell);
Lionheart
(87, Franklin J. Schaffner); with Ellen Barkin in
Siesta
(87, Mary Lambert); the husband in
Julia and Julia
(87, Peter Del Monte);
Hello Again
(87, Frank Perry);
A Soldier’s Tale
(88, Larry Parr);
Diamond Skulls
(89, Nicholas Broomfield);
Shipwrecked
(90, Nils Gaup), made in Norway;
Cool World
(92, Ralph Bakshi);
Point of No Return
(93, John Badham); associate producer on
Into the West
(93, Mike Newell);
Little Women
(94, Gillian Armstrong);
A Simple Twist of Fate
(94, Gillies MacKinnon);
Trial by Jury
(94, Heywood Gould);
Frankie Starlight
(95, Michael Lindsay-Hogg); as Dean Keaton in
The Usual Suspects
(95, Bryan Singer)—his first hit;
Dead Man
(96, Jim Jarmusch);
Mad Dog Time
(96, Larry Bishop);
The Last of the High Kings
(96, David Keating), which he also cowrote;
The Brylcream Boys
(96, Terence Ryan);
The End of Violence
(97, Wim Wenders);
Smilla’s Sense of Snow
(97, Bille August); as Lionel Powers, tycoon plus, in TV’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction
(97, Steve Surjik);
Polish Wedding
(98, Theresa Connelly);
Enemy of the State
(98, Tony Scott); as d’Artagnan in
The Man in the Iron Mask
(98, Randall Wallace);
Stigmata
(99, Rupert Wainwright); as Satan himself, dry and amusing, in the woefully disappointing
End of Days
(99, Peter Hyams);
When Brendan Met Trudy
(00, Kieron J. Walsh).

As well as being very hardworking, he has clear ambitions as writer, producer, and director. He was executive producer on
In the Name of the Father
(93, Jim Sheridan), and there is a film mentioned in references sources—
The Lark in the Clear Air
(96)—which he wrote, produced, and directed. But I’ve never seen it.

He was on TV in the series
Madigan Men
(00);
Virginia’s Run
(02, Peter Markle);
Ghost Ship
(02, Steve Beck);
Spider
(02, David Cronenberg);
Emmett’s Mark
(02, Keith Snyder);
Shade
(03, Damian Nieman);
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
(04, Mary McGuckian); Steyne in
Vanity Fair
(04, Mira Nair); the villain in
Assault on Precinct 13
(05, Jean-François Richet);
Wah-Wah
(05, Richard E. Grant);
Played
(06, Sean Stanek);
Jindabyne
(06, Ray Lawrence);
Emotional Arithmetic
(07, Paolo Barzman).

It was then that the role of the central psychotherapist fell into his lap for
In Treatment
(08). His status was hugely improved—so long as he resisted cure.

C

James Caan
, b. Queens, New York, 1939
Sonny Corleone dies too soon—don’t we all feel that, as he is shot to tatters at the tollbooth on Long Island? Not that he could survive, not with his intemperate preference for instinct over strategy. Still, with Sonny’s going, Michael’s overcast has no rival, or alternative. We want more of James Caan’s silly, flaky, hair-on-the-chest Sonny, because he stands up for life. If
you
were going to get eliminated, you’d rather Sonny did it than Michael.

The Godfather
(72, Francis Coppola) was the end to Caan’s youth. He was more reserved thereafter, and likely took himself too seriously. But in the decade or so before Sonny, Caan had tried anything: a tiny piece in
Irma La Douce
(63, Billy Wilder);
Lady in a Cage
(64, Walter Grauman);
The Glory Guys
(65, Arnold Laven);
Red Line 7000
(65, Howard Hawks);
El Dorado
(67, Hawks);
Games
(67, Curtis Harrington);
Countdown
(68, Robert Altman);
Journey to Shiloh
(68, William Hale); as the feebleminded footballer in
The Rain People
(69, Coppola); and as Rabbit Angstrom in
Rabbit, Run
(70, Jack Smight)—if only the movies had persisted with those Updike novels. But the role that made Caan, before Sonny, was that of dying footballer Brian Piccolo for TV in
Brian’s Song
(70, Buzz Kulik).

He had a supporting part in
T. R. Baskin
(71, Herbert Ross), and after a supporting actor nomination for
The Godfather
, he did
Cinderella Liberty
(73, Mark Rydell);
Slither
(73, Howard Zieff); and
Freebie and the Bean
(74, Richard Rush)—wayward choices. He was far better in
The Gambler
(74, Karel Reisz), where his energy was channeled into the story’s Dostoyevskyan depths. He was briefly reprised in
The Godfather, Part II
(74, Coppola), and he played Billy Rose in
Funny Lady
(75, Ross). Then came
The Killer Elite
(75, Sam Peckinpah);
Rollerball
(75, Norman Jewison);
Harry and Walter Go to New York
(76, Rydell);
Another Man, Another Chance
(77, Claude Lelouch);
A Bridge Too Far
(77, Richard Attenborough);
Comes a Horseman
(78, Alan J. Pakula); and
Little Moon & Jud McGraw
(79, Bernard Girard).