William Sadler
Well, thankfully on this sunny April day our waterbed is up, our first night was comfortable and dry, and we were warm enough, even though the bed was not. Yesterday, I was hoping the bed would warm up quickly. Today, I hope it doesn't warm up at all. For some reason, some years in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, we seem to skip Spring. We get cold, cold, cold, cold, warm, cold, cold, cold, HOT INFINITY! Between yesterday and today, we've had a 30° change in temperature. That's just not right. And when this happens, we know that we had one day of Spring in there somewhere, we just missed it.
We were wondering if the fruit trees were going to be blooming on time this year. It wasn't expected for another 10 days or so. Guess what? I'll bet by the time of the Blossom Festival all the blossoms will already be gone. Oh well, as long as the weather doesn't go all schizo on us, rain for days and ruin the fruit, we should be all right. Aaaand that's not what I was going to make this blog about.When I first started this blog, I did features on some great character actors (and used a title with bad grammar - oh well) and kind of forgot about it.
I've always liked William Sadler. I had thought I first saw him in the movie Demon Knight, one of the Tales From The Crypt movies. Apparently, I had seen him much earlier than that and hadn't known it. I started thinking of him again (as an actor, come on now) when Netflix started streaming 666 Park Avenue, and he appeared in the last few episodes of this interesting series that was inexplicably canceled after its first season on ABC.
That was one cool show, but I digress. William Sadler appeared as the father of one of the characters and his face and voice are unmistakable. You'll pick them out instantly no matter what he appears in.
Recently I decided to watch some of the old Tales From The Crypt TV episodes, which first ran on a premium movie channel we didn't get, so I didn't see them. William Sadler was in the premiere episode, both as a mummy friend of the Crypt Keeper, as well as being the main character of its first story.
If you've watched any of that particular TV series, you have seen a whole lot of celebrities pass through. Many so-called A-list stars, TV personalities and even a few musicians tramp their way through these episodes. The ones I've seen in just the last couple of days include Brad Pitt, Tim Curry, Martin Sheen, Katey Sagal, Eddie Izzard, Brad Dourif, Malcolm McDowell, and a whole list of others that either appear or star in these episodes. One episode even featured John Kassir, who, of course, is the voice of the Crypt Keeper.
So what's my point? Well, while watching these episodes I happened to see one where the Crypt Keeper was playing rock-paper-scissors with his good friend, the Grim Reaper. This was the Grim Reaper that appeared (and I know I'm really dating myself) in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. I will confess that I saw both Bill and Ted movies many, many times. So I knew that this was the same guy who played the Grim Reaper in their movie.
But this time I paid attention, both to how he spoke and how he looked and had one of those 'heyyyyyyy' moments. Sure enough, this white face character was also William Sadler. This man has been in so many movies and TV appearances, that for a complete list you'd have to go to his wiki page.
He is a man of many talents. He actually started out early in life as a banjo player. You know how freaking hard it is to play a banjo? Even I can pick out notes on a guitar, but put a banjo in my hands and I would know what the hell do with it. After winning an audition in a play, he decided that acting was what he wanted to do.
He did not neglect his education though, and has a Masters Degree in Acting with a minor in Speech Communications. He is a certified speech teacher and particularly skilled at accents. I've seen him in many things (more than I realized) and not recognized him because his manner of speaking was so different.
This man worked hard while waiting for his acting career to take off. I really have to admire him for that. Of course, when he became successful he still worked hard. He was in Die Hard 2, Demon Knight, The Shawshank Redemption - and many more movie roles. His television roles and appearances are varied and many. He's not nearly finished yet either, thank goodness.
I must admit that this is one actor that I will always kind of crush on. Mr. Sadler is currently 63 years old and looks 20 years younger than that. Okay, maybe 15. Point being, he will always be gorgeous, as well as talented. Hopefully we'll be seeing him in many more projects to come.
