The Roles of a Lifetime

One of the things I noticed when I looked at Brian Dennehy's filmography after reading about his Wednesday death was its length -- between television, movies and live theater the man had a couple hundred roles; he never stopped working. One movie is scheduled to come out later this year and another one doesn't have a release date. He had three movies out in 2019 when he turned 80 and three out the year before that, and a recurring role over the past three years in James Spader's The Blacklist.

Although Dennehy owns two Tony awards and a Golden Globe, my favorite roles of his came in during the 1980s -- 1985's Cocoon and Silverado, 1986's F/X and 1987's Best Seller. He usually played dramatic roles although every now and again took on a comedy. He wrote five TV movies in the 1990s; four as a series and one standalone. He directed those five along with one other and also an episode of the early 2000's suspense anthology series Night Visions.

At 6'-3", Dennehy usually loomed in every scene he played, especially when he was younger. One of the most interesting features of some of his performances is how lightly he wore his size -- in one scene in Silverado he almost literally skips across a saloon floor.

Dennehy didn't always pick the best productions, but no matter how much of a stinker you were watching him in you knew you were going to get the best performance he could force the script to let him give. Friends and family, obviously, will miss him. But fans, not so much, since he left so many performances behind to rewatch.