Tommy Boy and First Blood actor Brian Dennehy has died

YES. I saw that movie on HBO about eighty times in the 80s.

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So true. I would go further and say, nobody is best known for “Tommy Boy.”

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He was also in two of my fav 80’s flicks, FX and Cocoon

RIP

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This is what I think of when I think of Brian Dennehy.

It’s odd that I remember it at all 'cos apparently it was cancelled after only two episodes. Weird…

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on the dog and bone

meanwhile until otherwise instructed mister … will be incommunicado
(switchboard) where’s that …about twenty miles due east and take a left turn

It seemed like there was a period of about 20 years where he was in every damn movie I saw. The definitive ‘working actor’.

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I used to think about turning Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat into a movie, mostly the sets and costumes and camera angles, but the one actor I was sure of was Dennehy as Inskip the Uncatchable

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I thought Robert Downey Jr would work as JIm diGriz.

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Still a great film. Love Bryan Brown, too. The sequel is even tolerable.

^^^THIS^^^ OMFG so true.

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Read this thread, from someone who worked with his agent. It is a brilliantly told tale.

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'bye, Cobb.

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One of Brian Dennehy’s last projects is also, flat out, one of his best, the best I can think of. He’s in the pretty much unreleased for now, as far as I can tell, Son of the South, directed and written by Barry Brown, Spike Lee’s (and Mira Nair’s) long-time film editor. It’s set in Montgomery, Alabama in the early '60s and centers on the (real life) story of the only white field organizer in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Bob Zellner (this guy: https://snccdigital.org/people/bob-zellner/). Dennehy plays a supporting role, a KKK dragon who gets involved with lynching his grandson, but he’s a pivotal character and it’s easily one it’s one of his all-time strongest roles, arguably stronger and more interesting than his role in First Blood. Son of the South is a fantastic movie too! Julia Ormond and Cedric the Entertainer have amusing small parts. It’s a smart movie about a part of the south seldom seen in movies but Dennehy steals the show. (This movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_the_South_(film).)

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I recall Peter Greenaway saying in more than one interview that he was completely knocked out by Dennehy’s performance in Belly of an Architect, and felt it elevated the whole film.

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Great actor. Came across “To Catch A Killer” recently and re-watched it. Dennehy as John Wayne Gacy in clown make-up? That’ll give you nightmares. :exploding_head:

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“Hollywood will miss him. But the theater will grieve. . Because for us he wasn’t the un-showy journeyman — he was a titan, our leading interpreter of Eugene O’Neill, a fluid and expert actor in some of drama’s most challenging roles”

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