Veteran movie ‘That Guy’ Charles Napier died this week at the age of 75. Napier was probably best known as Murdock in Rambo First Blood Part II or Jack in Three Ninjas Knuckle Up, or for looking sort of like a thin Brian Dennehy. Napier had been a long time resident of Bakersfield, California (“home of the easily contented”), and the local paper there provides the most thorough eulogy:

Though the Kentucky native was most proud of his work as a thoughtful judge in the Oscar-winning 1993 film “Philadelphia,” it was his go-to role as a steely-eyed tough guy in movies that ranged from pure schlock to Hollywood blockbusters that assured his legacy.
“I always felt I played myself or some kind of version of myself. If you think about it, old actors probably don’t even have a self,” he told The Californian in March before the release of “Square Jaw and Big Heart,” the refreshingly candid and high-spirited memoir of his life as an actor.
Napier was born on April 12, 1936, in Allen County, Ky., the second of three children born to a homemaker and tobacco farmer. He joined the Army out of high school, despondent after an athletic scholarship to college failed to materialize. He was stationed in Germany for three years and credited his time in the service with developing social skills he never learned during his rural Kentucky upbringing. He earned a bachelor’s degree in art from Western Kentucky University in 1961 and appeared in his first stage play, “Love Among the Ruins,” a short time after graduation.
After bouncing around Florida, New York and San Diego, Napier arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. He found work as a substitute teacher and made mischief with a bunch of unknown actors on the cusp of counterculture fame: Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Harry Dean Stanton. After Nicholson helped him find an agent, Napier soon landed his first bit part, on the television series “Mission: Impossible.” Napier played a military guard, who patrolled alongside a German shepherd. The first line he would ever mutter on screen was fitting for a career that would feature a rogue’s gallery of heavies:
“He only bites when I smile.” [Bakersfield.com]

Napier seemed like a decent actor, despite almost always playing military or police guys, so this is only partially relevant, but it’s amazing how much of a career an actor can have based solely on looking a certain way. Specifically, I was thinking of James Rebhorn, who I just saw in Real Steel playing (shocker) a stuffy, A-hole rich guy (they even put him in an ascot, because that’s not cliché at all). He plays that same character in everything and he’s not even that good at it. The guy’s made hundreds of movies, based solely on the idea that someone who didn’t know anything about him saw him one day and said, “Hey, Tommy, don’t that guy look like a rich douchebag?”

“Oh wow, he really does.”

92-year-old character actress Frances Bay passed away a few days ago in Los Angeles. Bay had been fleeing the scene of a liquor store robbery screaming, “COPS AIN’T SH*T!” when she blew a tire and rolled her Camaro. I’m kidding of course, it was pneumonia.

The former Canadian radio actress played a number of memorable characters over the course of her career, including Happy Gilmore’s grandma, the marble rye lady from Seinfeld, Fonzie’s grandma Nussbaum, a few roles in David Lynch films, and of course Razor Clit in Scuzz Party. Bay has no immediate survivors (according to her wikipedia page, she had one son, Josh, who died when he was 23, but it appears to be uncited).

Could it be that Frances Bay was in her hospital bed, barely holding on, when she saw a commercial for Bucky Larson, and that was what finally killed her? I have no evidence, but I’d say it’s quite likely.

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Yes, that is a real headline, and it’s exaggerated only slightly. According to the Sunday Sport, Percy Foster was a British dwarf (sidenote: isn’t “Percy” a perfect dwarf name?) who starred in such films as Hi-Ho- Hi-Ho, It’s Up Your Arse We Go. As recently as a few weeks ago, a production assistant noticed that Percy was a spitting jizzing image of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. The original Sunday Sport piece read…

Percy said: “Porn lookalikes get more money than normal actors. Dwarf lookalikes are as rare as hen’s teeth and so can command top dollar.
“I’ve already ordered a new BMW and a diamondencrusted Soda Stream.”

Grumble movie producer Dexter Yamunkeh said: “We are not passing off Percy as Gordon Ramsay – for one thing, Gordon’s not 3ft 6in.”
A friend of Ramsay, who has no connection with the adult film industry, said: “Gordon is f*cking furious – f*cking, c*nting furious.”

But like many celebrities, Percy’s star burned bright but flamed out quickly, and his half-eaten corpse was recently discovered in a badger den. I hear Jayne Mansfield went the same way.

With the world at his feet and producers beating a path to his door, it’s all over for pint-sized Percy.
His tiny corpse was found deep in an underground chamber by Ministry of Agriculture experts ahead of a planned badger-gassing programme near Tregaron, west Wales.
And expert CSI teams had to use fingertip technology to remove his body from the six-foot-deep burrow.
Sources close to the investigation said Percy was clothed but parts of his corpse had been “partially gnawed” by animals.
It is not yet clear how Percy died, though suicide has not been ruled out. Movie producer Dexter Yamunkeh said: “Percy was a little guy with big problems.
“He was doing well but he was under pressure, 24/7, like everyone in this goddamned business.”
A friend of Gordon Ramsay said he had not “f*cking heard” about tragic Percy’s death. An inquest has been opened and adjourned. [SundaySport via Gawker]

Again, this comes from the Sunday Sport, which seems to be the only place I can find any mention of either Percy or his alleged porn film — and porn films don’t usually go to great lengths for cyber anonymity, in fact some might call it counter-productive. But would they just invent a dwarf porn star and then fabricate his badger death out of whole cloth? Even for British tabloids, that seems extreme. And who am I to mistrust a publication whose current cover story is “LOO MUST BE JOKING! World’s crappiest toilets.” Not to mention their other headline, “DO NOT BUM MY BOYS DOWLING.” …I understand what those words mean separately, but together they’re just a mess.

Anyway, if a shady British tabloid is to be believed, Gordon Ramsay had a dwarf porn star look-alike who was recently gassed and eaten by badgers.

ANNNND I THINK TO MYSELLLLLFFF, WHAT A WONDERFUL WOOORRRRRRRRRLLDD…..

UPDATE: Shockingly, we’ve since discovered that this story wasn’t true.

Bubba Smith, probably best known as Hightower in the Police Academy movies, died yesterday in his home at the age of 66. No cause of death has yet been named, but the results of his autopsy should be known late today or tomorrow. I think I speak for everyone when I say that this is a tragedy, and if God was fair, it would’ve been that son of a bitch Guttenberg.

Smith was found dead at his Baldwin Hills home. No cause of death has been determined and there were no initial indications of foul play. Smith was 66.
A caretaker found Smith dead at his home Wednesday afternoon, police said.
A 6-foot-7, 280-pound defensive end, Smith was the No. 1 NFL draft pick from Michigan State University when he joined the Baltimore Colts in 1967.
He played five seasons for the Colts, which included their upset loss to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and a victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V. He spent two seasons with the Oakland Raiders and two more with the Houston Oilers before a knee injury ended his career in 1976.
After football, Smith was recruited to the ranks of former professional athletes who appeared as themselves in commercials for Miller Lite beer. He and fellow NFL veteran Dick Butkus were cast as inept golfers and polo players in the TV spots. Smith also was featured solo in one commercial extolling the virtues of the beer, beaming into the camera, “I also love the easy-opening cans,” while ripping off the top of the can.
Despite a lucrative contract and widespread popularity, Smith, who didn’t drink, walked away from the job out of concerns that the spots were contributing to alcohol consumption.
He turned to acting in movies and TV, playing Moses Hightower in six “Police Academy” movies. He also appeared in a number of TV series, including “Half-Nelson,” “Blue Thunder” and “Good Times.”
His brother Tody, a star at USC and in the NFL, later became Bubba’s agent. He died at 50 in 1999. [LATimes]

I’ll always remember Bubba Smith as the good former-football-player-turned-actor-in-a-police-procedural-parody movie, the one who didn’t kill people.

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America lost its favorite cross-eyed detective today as Peter Falk, best known as Columbo, died in Beverly Hills at the age of 83, just two years younger than Hugh Hefner. I think we can all agree that his best role was as the kindly grandfather in The Princess Bride. Damn, I loved that guy.

His family announced his death in a statement, The Associated Press reported. He had been treated for Alzheimer’s disease in recent years.
Mr. Falk had a wide-ranging career in comedy and drama, in the movies and onstage, before and during the three-and-a-half decades in which he portrayed the slovenly but canny lead on “Columbo.” He was nominated for two Oscars; appeared in original stage productions of works by Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon and Arthur Miller, worked with the directors Frank Capra, John Cassavetes, Blake Edwards and Mike Nichols, and co-starred with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis and Jason Robards.
But like that of his contemporary Telly Savalas of “Kojak” fame, Mr. Falk’s primetime popularity was founded on a single role.
A lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department, Columbo was a comic variation on the traditional fictional detective. With the keen mind of Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe, he was cast in the mold of neither — not a gentleman scholar, and not a tough guy. He was instead a mass of quirks and peculiarities, a seemingly distracted figure in a rumpled raincoat, perpetually patting his pockets for a light for his signature stogie.
He drove a battered Peugeot, was unfailingly polite, was sometimes accompanied by a basset hound named Dog, and was constantly referring to the wisdom of his wife (who was never seen on screen) and a variety of relatives and acquaintances who were identified in Homeric-epithet-like shorthand — an uncle who played the bagpipes with the Shriners, say, or a nephew majoring in dermatology at U.C.L.A. — and who were called to mind by the circumstances of the crime at hand.
It was a low-rent affect that was especially irksome to the high-society murderers he outwitted in episode after episode.
Mr. Falk had a glass eye, resulting from an operation to remove a cancerous tumor when he was 3 years old. The prosthesis gave all his characters a peculiar, almost quizzical squint. And he had a mild speech impediment that gave his L’s a breathy quality, a sound that emanated from the back of his throat and that seemed especially emphatic whenever, in character, he introduced himself as Lieutenant Columbo. [NYTimes]

Yep, he was ridiculously likable.  I keep trying to poke out one of Zac Efron’s eyes, or knock out one of Taylor Lautner’s teeth with a tack hammer to maybe give them little character, but nooo, you gotta handle everyone with kid gloves these days. Everyone’s a pussy.  As for that headline, yes,all news of celebrity tragedy will be accompanied by a bad Roger Ebert pun from now on.  “Hey, how about that Mama Cass? Hearing how she passed has me all choked up.  But seriously, folks, try the veal.”

UPDATE: Here’s Columbo going apesh*t on some smarmy coffee motherf*cker. Thanks for the tip, Guy: Read the rest of this entry »