Road House
I managed to catch some of Road House at the weekend, which you would assume was a low point for many of those involved - and turned out to be a necessary source of investigation for a lot of them.
First up, Sam Elliot has a reputation as a distinguished elder statesman of Hollywood, playing up to just that role in Tombstone and of course as The Stranger in The Big Lebowski. A turn as a straight-up-jack-drinking-bar-brawler here however led me to pull up his rap sheet and it's not a pretty picture. He has a string of previous offenses, from bit-parts in Mission:Impossible (the TV show, not the movie) and The Streets of San Francisco, to the role of Card player #2 in Butch and Sundance. The original, thank god, not The Early Years. He did manage to marry Katherine Ross however.
Next up, Marshall Teague was a guy I recognised but couldn't place. Turns out it could have been anything, as he has 86 minor offences on his sheet, ranging from Knight Rider, Baywatch, The A-Team or Quantum Leap through to playing three totally different characters in various episodes of The Fall Guy, and two in MacGyver. Book him, Danno.
Swayze is hardly even worth mentioning - being such an easy target - but one positive outcome of this movie is that it obviously had some impact on the Coen brothers, as alongside Sam Elliot they also cast Ben Gazzara as Jackie Treehorn in The Big Lebowski - a role not dissimilar to his performance here as Brad Wesley, town bad guy. Gazzara also has that air of "cameo by a guy you should know" about his career, but again it's patchy at best. He did do his time in Cassavetes movies in the 70's, but from then on it's mostly bit-parts and the odd TV movie - often in Italian. A role as Gallo's dad in Buffalo '66 is a possible 'high-point'.
11th Sep 2006 - Tumblr