M Emmet Walsh

Michael Emmet Walsh was born on March 22, 1935, in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of Agnes Katharine (née Sullivan) and Harry Maurice Walsh Sr., who was a customs agent, as were his grandfather and brother. He was of Irish descent, and was raised in rural Swanton, Vermont, where he underwent a mastoid operation at age 3, which left Walsh deaf in his left ear.

He graduated from Clarkson University in 1958 (B.A., Business Administration), and in 1998, the Clarkson Alumni Association presented Walsh with the Golden Knight Award. At Clarkson, Walsh had also dabbled in stage productions, and soon after being encouraged by a faculty advisor, he moved to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He went on to perform in regional theater for the next decade before making his Broadway debut in 1969, with Al Pacino, in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?.

According to his manager, Sandy Joseph, "Walsh's tremendous body of work includes 119 feature films and more than 250 television productions." Being partially deaf in one ear and with an accent harkening from Vermont made it clear to Walsh: "I wasn't going to do Shaw and Shakespeare and Molière — my speech was simply too bad." His persona was a "mesmerising everyman and an indelible gargoyle" who featured "poached-egg eyes."

Walsh specialized in playing villains who were blissfully oblivious to their villainy. He brought a "delightfully menacing presence" to his characters. He was a no-nonsense worker bee in the film industry. Walsh characterized himself as approaching "each job thinking it might be my last, so it better be the best work possible. I want to be remembered as a working actor. I'm being paid for what I'd do for nothing."

Walsh spent years honing his craft in movie bit parts and on stage. After appearances in the films Midnight Cowboy (1969), Alice's Restaurant (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), They Might Be Giants (1971), What's Up, Doc? (1972), Serpico (1973), The Gambler (1974), Bound for Glory (1976), and Airport '77 (1977), Walsh came to prominence in the iconic 1977 hockey comedy film Slap Shot, in which he played the cynical small town sportswriter Dickie Dunn, and the 1978 crime film Straight Time, in which he played a vicious parole officer opposite Dustin Hoffman. USA Today film critic Mike Clark wrote that the film character who was "a cesspool in a flowered shirt" was typically Walsh. He also had a small but memorable role as a crazed sniper in the Steve Martin comedy The Jerk (1979), followed by roles in the drama films Brubaker (1980), Ordinary People (1980), and Reds (1981).

Bigger roles

One of his best-known roles was Captain Harry Bryant in Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner (1982). He characterized Blade Runner as being especially difficult and tiresome to make, given director Ridley Scott's insistence on perfection. As a hard-bitten police commander, Walsh's character brings Deckard (Harrison Ford) out of retirement to "retire" cyborgs, telling Deckard, "I need your magic." Walsh allowed that he was completely confused as Blade Runner was filmed, and did not have any idea where it was going.

In 1983, Walsh appeared in Mike Nichols' biographical film Silkwood. In 1984, he was cast as a crooked Texas private eye in the film noir Blood Simple, which was the Coen brothers' first film and resulted in Walsh winning the first Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. Pauline Kael, a film critic for The New Yorker, praised Walsh's portrayal in her film review, stating "his broad buffoonery helps to ground the picture, to keep it jaundiced and low-down." He then reteamed with the Coen brothers for Raising Arizona as a memorable "yakking machine shop worker".

Other prominent film roles include a prostate examining doctor in the Chevy Chase film Fletch (1985), a college diving coach in the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School (1986), a police chief in the horror film Critters (1986), the apothecary in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996), father of the groom in the romantic comedy My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), the voice of Earl Stutz in animated film The Iron Giant (1999), the adventure film Snow Dogs (2002), and the Christmas comedy film Christmas with the Kranks (2004), where he played one of the Kranks' neighbors. In 1992, he appeared as a powerful U.S. Senator in David Winning's Killer Image. He later appeared as a writer in the Irish comedy-drama film Calvary (2014), and a security guard in the mystery film Knives Out (2019).

Television and stage

On television, Walsh appeared as Alex Lembeck, a motorcycle cop who appointed himself as Sandy Stockton's chaperone and protector on The Sandy Duncan Show in 1972. He appeared in an episode of the NBC drama series Gibbsville in 1976 and Little House on the Prairie in 1981. Walsh also made occasional guest appearances on Home Improvement as Tim Taylor's father-in-law in 1994. Other appearances included Early Edition, The X-Files, Ed, and Frasier. He also appeared as Dr. Joseph Krofft, a medical examiner with a grudge against Andy Sipowicz, on an episode of NYPD Blue. Later appearances included the series Sneaky Pete, and The Righteous Gemstones.

On stage, in 2004, Walsh appeared in the London production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child.

Critic Nicolas Rapold called Walsh "a consummate old pro of the second-banana business", while Roger Ebert hailed him as "the poet of sleaze". Ebert also fabricated his "Stanton-Walsh Rule": "No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." Walsh was "ham-faced, heavyset" and "often played good old boys with bad intentions".

In 2018, Walsh was inducted into the Character Actor Hall of Fame by his Blade Runner co-star Harrison Ford. Later in the same ceremony he received the Chairman's Lifetime Achievement award.

Walsh had a reputation for generosity and wry wit. He habitually distributed two-dollar bills to the set's crew, with some advice: "Don't spend it, and you'll never be broke."

Walsh died of cardiac arrest at Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans, Vermont, on March 19, 2024, at the age of 88.

Film

Television

• M. Emmet Walsh at IMDb
• M. Emmet Walsh at the TCM Movie Database