(NationRise.com) – Veteran actor Emmet Walsh, who was part of legendary movies like The Jerk and Blade Runner, died in his house in St. Albans, Vermont, on March 19, at the age of 88. In a statement, his manager said that Walsh was not only a great actor but also a great man who will always be remembered. The statement also detailed that the actor died from a cardiac arrest.
Walsh once said that his work’s most interesting aspect was the opportunity to play characters of different backgrounds and characteristics. He also said that he considered himself an actor who liked to “play hard” and loved to “do everyman” instead of playing one role.
Because of his immense stature and baritone voice, Walsh usually played authority figures, ranging from shady bureaucrats to government officials, in numerous genres. In the comedy cult classic The Jerk, Walsh played a psychotic private eye who engaged in a shooting rampage seconds after drawing a random name from a phone book.
The success of the movie and the impressive level of his acting gained the attention of director Ridley Scott, who wanted him to be part of the sci-fi movie Blade Runner, which eventually became a cult classic. Walsh was cast to portray Captain Bryant, whose line about “beauty and the beast” became one of the most memorable in sci-fi history.
While Walsh was part of such a famous movie, the most significant moment of his career came in 1984, when the Coen brothers cast him to take center stage in the noir classic Blood Simple. In the movie, Walsh played the memorable private detective Loren Visser, who became the greatest villain of the Coen Brothers’ filmography.
About that role, he told The Guardian during a 2017 interview that the secret to playing Visser was not to play as a villain, as the character didn’t think of himself as bad or evil.
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