James Gammon, who may have had the best voice ever among character actors, passed away this weekend at 70. He was probably best known as the manager of the fictional version of the Cleveland Indians in two Major League movies, but a scan of his IMDB page shows he had plenty of other roles. One of my favorite entries from that list is the un-named "Old Ranch Hand" from the 2005 Wim Wenders/Sam Shephard movie Don't Come Knocking. Another is biker "Ironbutt Garrett" from the 1993 action film Running Cool. I don't remember if I ever saw either one of those movies, but those particular character names sum up Gammon pretty well.
My favorite Gammon role is "Dawson," the outlaw leader from Silverado who gets tricked by Scott Glenn and Kevin Kline and loses the money his men stole from a wagon train. When Glenn's character pretends to be an outlaw himself, he fast-talks Gammon by saying he and the playing-at-being-dead Kline are fleeing from a posse and that he'd heard about the hideout -- from a bunch of names he's just made up -- so he headed there, and he hopes Gammon won't mind. Gammon responds, in his shifting-gears-while-low-on-transmission-fluid voice, "Mind? You bring a posse to my best hideout and you ask me if I mind? Mister, I don't know any of those names. You're about to die."
He was also, as the obituary notes, a big booster of live theater and collected some awards for acting and directing in Los Angeles. And in a nice twist on the way things are often done among the performing set, he stayed married to the mother of his children for 38 years, until his death.
oh, man...another great one is gone. and thanks for reminding me of his part in silverado, which remains one of my top five westerns. ("today, my jurisdiction ends here...")
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