MEmmetWalsh Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Back around 1982 -- just around the time a little movie called E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was dazzling everyone and their grandmother -- young director Steven Spielberg instantly morphed into an absolute juggernaut of an executive producer. Along with partners Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, Spielberg lent his name/stamp of approval to a whole bunch of family-friendly comedies and adventure flicks. During the Amblin' Era, the trio gave us Gremlins, The Goonies, Back to the Future, The Money Pit, An American Tail, Young Sherlock Holmes, Innerspace, Three O'Clock High and Batteries Not Included. Oh, but wait... I'm forgetting one...

Ah yes, 1987's Harry and the Hendersons, which was little more than a slightly sitcommier version of E.T., but it boasted more than enough assets to warrant its own loyal fan base. (For those who don't remember, it's a flick about the craziness that occurs when a Sasquatch is invited to live in a nice little suburban home.) Starring John Lithgow as the dad, Melinda Dillon as the mom and Don Ameche, Lainie Kazan and M. Emmet Walsh in supporting roles, Harry proved to be quite the decent little hit for the Amblin' gang and their Universal partners. The flick was in heavy HBO rotation for a while and (of course) it made its way to VHS ... but thousands of hardcore Harry fans have bemoaned the lack of a DVD release for some time now. (Geek Tidbit: The guy who played Bigfoot in this movie also played the title characters in Prophecy and Predator!)

As Cinematicess Martha Fischer and I were spitballing ideas on how to create a regular feature that would spread some love to all those wonderful character actors out there, my first impulse was to call it "The Walken Award." But Martha, being quite appreciably smarter than I, said "Scott, if you're trying to create a column about underrated or unacknowledged character actors ... Walken's not your flagship guy. Everyone already LOVES Christopher Walken!" And she was right. So I flipped through my Favorite Actors file and tried a few new names on for size. "The Dabney Coleman Award? Nah, too grouchy. The Harry Dean Stanton Award? The M. Emmet Walsh ... Maybe just a bit too obscure... Oh jeez, I got it: J.T. freakin' Walsh!" It was perfect, mainly because Walsh was such a fantastic character actor, but also because he's now sadly demised -- and therefore it felt kinda "right" to name an award after him.

Unfortunately, a bunch of smart movie geeks had beaten me to the punch ... by a few years, at least.

After publishing our piece "The J.T. Walsh Awards: An Introduction," I got an email from a reader informing me that a very popular website called Fametracker has long been running a feature column called "The J.T. Walsh Memorial: Hey! It's That Guy!" -- which means that A) they got there first so the name obviously belongs to Fametracker, and B) brilliant minds really do think alike. Rest assured that this was not an attempt to shanghai or piggy-back another website's concept -- apparently the 'net's just full of people who really dig character actors -- especially J.T. Walsh.

So we ask you, the Cinematical reader, to help us come up with a new name for this award. I'm still partial to "The Walken Award," but I'm even more partial to getting some help from our loyal readers. So think hard about those wonderfully familiar faces that seem to pop up in every single movie, and then leave your suggestions in the comments bin.