This Guy's a Character

John Quade, a man who made his living playing some seriously mean (and some hilariously mean) guys, passed away this week.

Quade's Internet Movie Database page shows literally dozens of roles in TV and movies. He almost always played a baddie -- usually, a southern authority figure who misused his power. His squinty eyes and nasally drawl made him seem to be designed to project ignorant, bigoted bullying.

It was all acting, of course. Quade was born in Kansas and grew up in Topeka, as midwestern as they come (played football and baseball and ran track). And he collected stamps and played chess. He was one of the workers who helped build parts of the Apollo mission landing modules that went to the moon.

Quade was an activist against the federal government, which he believed had migrated far from its original intent. In some Youtube clips of him speaking at different conferences, he speaks out against things like the 14th amendment and driver's licenses. He favored a concept called "allodial law," which denies a government's ability to take land by eminent domain or to tax its owners. Listening to the clips -- which is hard to do for long because some of Quade's reasoning is arcane and reminds you of your crazy uncle who thinks liberals like Andrew Jackson ruined this country -- you can tell Quade's regular speaking voice is standard accentless Middle America, and pitched a couple tones lower than a lot of his characters.

Being one of those character actors who played in pretty much everything and all, I wonder if St. Peter saw Quade coming and said, "Hey! It's that guy!"

PS -- The old Fametracker site people who collected character actor profiles for the aforementioned book somehow neglected to include Quade. Shameful oversight.