Robert Nichols at right, with Rex Reason in This Island Earth (1955).

Noted actor and all-around neat guy Robert Nichols has passed away. He was 88.

Nichols is a favorite character actor of mine, someone who, without fail, charmed me every time I saw him on screen — and he had a habit of showing up in the oddest, most delightful places. He achieved his most notable screen successes in the 1950s, with one of his earliest and best roles as Mac in The Thing From Another World (1951). He was one of the members of the Olympic team sailing with Lorelei and Dorothy in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Pinky in Giant, and had uncredited but notable parts in films such as Julius Caesar and Monkey Business.

Starting in the 1960s, he began to get smaller, odder roles, especially on television. His hard-drinking Seal — the Seals being an analogue for the Shriners — in a 1966 episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was surprisingly complicated, a funny role with more than a hint of edge to it. One sensed that Nichols wasn’t asked to play the part that way but simply did, because he could, and because he wanted to. The same could be said for many of his later film roles: His travel agent in The Yellow Rolls Royce, the airplane passenger in the original Out-of-Towners, and the inexplicably small role of a desk clerk in the similarly inexplicable Wicked, Wicked.

He most famously appeared as Joe Wilson, lab partner to Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) in the 1955 sci-fi classic This Island Earth. The film is rather unfairly maligned thanks to MST3K fandom, despite it being a terrific example of a 1950s sci-fi matinee movie. Certainly, it’s a film specifically created to entertain, but displays more depth than many similar films of the era. Much of that depth comes from the character of Joe, played by Nichols as less “weenie sidekick” than reasoned observer. Films of the 1950s cast heroes as physically strong and imposing, with the villains and sidekicks made weak and smaller in comparison, and some of Joe’s character necessarily reflects that; that’s the trait that most of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie focuses on, because even in the super futuristic year of 1996, a man showing emotion was hilarious.

Joe is more than just silly weakling next to the movie’s real hero, however. He’s the guy still excited by science, eager for discoveries, but a reasonable man, not a hotshot pilot who doesn’t know the difference between bravery and foolishness. Joe is also the audience stand-in, rightly questioning the motives of the aliens, and the one person willing to tell Cal that he’s a damned idiot for getting on a plane that has no pilot. Nichols was smart enough and a strong enough performer to play Joe as a little desperate, a man unafraid to show emotions, without making him a caricature. His final moments in This Island Earth, staring into the foggy night sky, exhausted after trying to reason with a hard-headed hero, are genuinely touching.

Keep watching the skies, my friend. You will be missed.

Herbert Lom in 1962.

Wonderful character actor Herbert Lom, most known for his roles in Pink Panther films, has passed away. He was 95.

Lom figured prominently in the recently-reviewed Lace, and appeared in over 100 films and television shows.  He was in Spartacus (1960) and The Dead Zone (1983), and played Van Helsing opposite Christopher Lee in Count Dracula (1970), The Phantom in the 1962 version of Phantom of the Opera and Louis in The Ladykillers (1955). An amazing career and a terrific actor. He will be missed.

Ernest Borgnine circa 1973. (via)

Ernest Borgnine passed away yesterday at age 95. A terrific actor and a strange, wonderful man. He will be missed.

The film world has recently lost two terrific character actors.

Susan Tyrrell, who appeared in Fat City (1972), The Killer Inside Me (1976), and Cry-Baby (1990), died of unknown causes on June 19. Photo courtesy Follies of God by James Grissom, which has a wonderful quote about Tyrrell by Tennessee Williams.

Richard Lynch, horror, television and B-movie character great, was found dead in his home on June 19. Photo courtesy the official Richard Lynch website.

Both actors are more than deserving of their own posts, of course. Tyrrell and Lynch were both still actively working in film, both with active projects still in production. Richard Lynch has been a mainstay in the movies that many of my B-movie brethren talk about, and if we haven’t seen a Richard Lynch film for the Bad Netflix Instant Movie Marathon, it’s only because we haven’t yet gotten around to it. I first saw him on a two-part episode of “Hunter” in the late 1980s, and his performance was so strong that for years I referred to him as Frank Lassiter, the name of the character he had played. And that was exactly the kind of actor he was, giving terrific performances in everything from big budget films like Little Nikita (1988) to B-grade flicks like Puppetmaster III to a classic ensemble piece such as Crime and Punishment (2002).

Susan Tyrrell was one of the first cult movie mainstays I discovered, thanks to a university course in crime fiction. A burgeoning film critic even back then, though I didn’t know it, I chose to do my final term paper on comparing the novels of Jim Thompson with the film adaptations. My professor raved about Susan Tyrrell in The Killer Inside Me, as did I after watching the film. I loved her in everything I saw her in, and had just watched her powerhouse performance in Fat City on TCM just a few hours before she died — I suspect many of us did — and if you’re like me, you wondered again how such a strong, powerful actress could have failed to win an an Academy Award.

Both fine actors, gone far before their time. They will be missed.