Game Over, Man!

"Who doesn't love Bill Paxton?"

There are no guarantees in life's dice roll, but sometimes, when a random toss comes up craps for a joe we all liked, we're the ones feeling robbed, if not outright cheated. That's how we reacted when Bill Paxton, an everyman of an actor, died unexpectedly as a result of complications from heart surgery February 25, 2017, age 61.

Just a few weeks earlier, when former standup comic Marc Maron interviewed the actor on his weekly radio podcast "WTF" (pictured above), the host sincerely reiterated, "Who doesn't love Bill Paxton?"

It was often said that Bill Paxton is the only actor to have been killed by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator. Naysayers argue that his character in "The Terminator," an LA punk with spiked blue hair who taunts Arnold's butt-naked cyborg (pictured above), is merely tossed aside like a sack of garbage, but one thing we know for sure in the Moviehouse is that Bill Paxton is the only actor turned into a giant talking turd by an Eileen Ford model, in "Weird Science" (pictured below).

Director John Hughes allowed Bill Paxton leeway in ad-libbing his dialogue in "Weird Science," including a a line the actor remembered his father used on his brother and himself after a night of partying: "How 'bout a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?"

In interviews, Paxton would credit his dad for instilling in him a love of movies. John Paxton, a lumber wholesaler, frequently took him to the cinema in his boyhood hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, after which he would engage his son in discussions about a film's photography, editing, and music score, among other aspects an average kid would take for granted.

After graduating from high school in Fort Worth, 18-year-old Bill Paxton moved to Los Angeles, where he found employment in the art department of New World Pictures, which was founded by B-movie mogul Roger Corman. The first picture Paxton worked on, as a set dresser, was 1974's "Big Bad Mama," producer Corman's follow-up to the 1970 melodrama "Bloody Mama." "That's where I got my cherry popped," Paxton later said, referring to his career. Angie Dickinson starred in "Big Bad Mama" and got naked frequently as the gun-toting matriarch who leads her two nubile daughters on a cross-country crime spree in Depression-era Americana.

"Big Bad Mama" was the movie to see if you wanted to watch a
nude love scene between Angie Dickinson and William Shatner.
Angie portrays a woman named Wilma, and Tom Skerritt plays
her otherwise lover, Fred (that's right: Fred and Wilma). Also
along for the bumpy ride are Susan Sennett and Robbie Lee
as Dickinson's daughters.

Paxton's inauspicious acting debut came when he was working behind the camera on 1975's "Crazy Mama," the third opus of Roger Corman's "Mama" gangster trilogy, this one set in the 1950s and featuring Cloris Leachman as the law-breaking mother, directed by Jonathan Demme, the future filmmaker behind "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia."

Look out! Cloris Leachman's got a gun in "Crazy Mama."

When an actor failed to show up for a small role, Paxton heard Demme's voice over the on-set walkie talkie: "Get that kid off the art department truck, cut his hair, get him to wardrobe, and bring him here."

Bill Paxton backs his way into screen acting with his last-minute
casting as "John" in "Crazy Mama" in 1975.

Cloris Leachman's costars in "Crazy Mama" featured Hollywood veterans Stuart Whitman, Ann Sothern, and Jim Backus, alongside genre favorites Dick Miller and Sally Kirkland, as well as "newcomers" Linda Purl, Donny Most (a year into his role as Ralph Malph on "Happy Days"), and Tisha Sterling (Ann Sothern's real-life daughter). Dennis Quaid, like Paxton, made his acting debut in the film as a bellhop, as did Will Sampson (whose breakthrough role as "Chief" in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was five months down the line) as a Native American at a trading post, in a supporting cast that included "Red Dawn" director John Milius as a cop.

Bill Paxton continued to work behind the camera at New World Pictures. He was the set decorator on "Eat My Dust" (1976), with Ron Howard, who agreed to star in the mindless car chase smash-up if producer Corman let the actor direct his next feature, which turned out to be yet another cinematic demolition derby, 1977's "Grand Theft Auto." Howard would later direct Bill Paxton in the 1995 drama "Apollo 13."

Probably the most fascinating picture at New World that Paxton worked on as a set decorator was a curio of cultdom from 1981 called "Galaxy of Terror," an "Alien"-wannabe about an ill-fated crew of a deep-space rescue mission who fall victim, one-by-one, to bizarre manifestations of their own inner fears. Like so many other Roger Corman productions, the film went through a variety of title changes, including "Quest," "Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror," and "Planet of Horrors."

The star, Edward Albert, was the son of venerable character actor Eddie Albert. The younger actor cared for his aging father, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, before his death at age 99 in May 2005. One year and four months later, Edward himself succumbed to lung cancer at age 55.

The drab khaki fashion statement for interplanetary-trotters made
popular in "Alien" is modeled here by (left to right): Robert Englund
(Freddy Krueger in the "Elm Street" nightmares), Zalman King
(B-movie star who became an auteur of softcore erotica with
9½ Weeks," "Two Moon Junction," "Wild Orchid, and "Red Shoes
Diaries"), Edward Albert, Ray Walston ("Fast Times at Ridgemont
High's" Mr. Hand), and Erin Moran (Joanie on "Happy Days").

"Galaxy of Terror" elicited a considerable amount of notoriety for two explicitly gruesome scenes. One involved the screen-splattering demise of Fonzie's "Cupcake," Erin Moran, who encounters some nasty cables with a bone-crushing mind of their own in a cramped conduit (pictured below).

To quote Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok from SCTV's "Farm
Film Report," Joanie "blowed up real good" in "Galaxy of Terror."

As originally scripted, actress Taaffe O'Connell's character, Damela, was supposed to be stripped topless by a 12-foot long, one-ton maggot before ending up as the creature's meal, but since producer Roger Corman had promised financial backers a sex scene featuring O'Connell, he rewrote the sequence to have the nude Damela physically raped by the oversized worm - affectionately nicknamed "Maggie the Maggot" by the crew (pictured below) - and dying in the throes of uncontrollable ecstasy while covered with slime.

Roger Corman's professionalism drove him to direct the scene himself. Although she used a body double for some of the full-nudity footage, Taaffe O'Connell, trouper that she was, didn't object to getting naked. She was, however, upset by the frigid temperature of the slime and the set itself.

The explicit nature of the scene initially earned the movie an "X" rating, which was ultimately sidestepped with the subtle cutting of a few frames by editor (and future co-director of "Hell Comes to Frogtown") R.J. Kizer.

Working alongside Bill Paxton on the set of "Galaxy of Terror" was James Cameron, hired as the picture's production designer and second unit director. The two became friends, and Cameron regaled Paxton with his idea for a science-fiction film about a cyborg sent back in time to kill a woman whose unborn son would lead a rebellion against a future army of machines. That, of course, became "The Terminator," the first movie Cameron cast Paxton in, followed by "Aliens," "Titanic," and "True Lies." In 2003, Paxton narrated and participated in Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss," which documented an eye-opening expedition exploring the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.


"How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self-Culture?"

It was around this time, when he was working in the art department on various low-budget productions, that Bill Paxton manifested his interest in music, an aspect of his career many might have been unaware of until reading write-ups following his demise. In 1980, he directed a short film featuring the novelty song "Fish Heads," which was written and recorded in 1978 by Barnes & Barnes, a pair of fictitious twin brothers named Art and Artie Barnes. In reality, the duo consisted of actor Bill Mumy and his childhood friend, Robert Haimer. An actor since the age of six, Mumy remained a familiar face on television from the 1960s to the '90s (pictured below).

(Left to right) Bill Mumy terrorizes a small Midwestern town in the
classic episode of "The Twilight Zone" titled "It's a Good Life"...
protects the cowardly Jonathan Harris from aliens in "Lost in Space"
...poses in a bridal gown as Art Barnes of Barnes & Barnes...and
endures prosthetic makeup as an alien diplomat on "Babylon 5."

Barnes & Barnes recorded their quirky songs on two-track tapes, which they never originally intended to share with others.

Bill Paxton (pictured above and below) starred in the surrealistic music video for "Fish Heads" (a year before the launch of MTV) and personally peddled it to "Saturday Night Live," which, to his surprise, picked it up and aired it on two consecutive weekends.

Feel free to sing along with the ear-worm chorus:
"Fish heads, fish heads / Roly-poly fish heads /
Fish heads, fish heads / Eat them up - yum!"

Barry Hansen, a record collector who made a career out of broadcasting novelty recordings as radio's "Dr. Demento," had a cameo role in the short - shot on Super 8mm film for $2000 (mostly for processing charges) - as a homeless man who envies Paxton's purchase of an oversized fish head. Hansen would proudly proclaim "Fish Heads" "the most requested song in the history of 'The Dr. Demento Show.'"

Barry Hansen (aka Dr. Demento) is visited by Bill Mumy (aka Art
Barnes of Barnes & Barnes) and song parodist Weird Al Yankovic.

Robert Haimer (aka Artie Barnes) later recounted, "We made four B & B films with Billy (Paxton) and he was always fearless and brilliant. A sweet, funny, talented actor who loved the Golden Age of show biz and especially Buster Keaton."

In 1981, Bill Paxton co-wrote and appeared in the Barnes & Barnes short "Love Tap" (pictured below), directed by renowned photographer and filmmaker Rocky Schenck.

Paxton was also featured in the Barnes & Barnes short film "Soak It Up" (pictured below), likewise directed by Rocky Schenck.

In Barnes & Barnes' "Ah A," again directed by Schenck, Paxton had a brief but disturbingly memorable cameo in the film's fadeout (pictured below).

In 1982, Paxton had a brief role as Nazi soldier in the World War II-themed music video for Pat Benatar's "Shadows of the Night."

The ludicrous premise for the "Shadows of the Night" music video
casts Pat Benatar as a factory-bound Rosie the Riveter who day-
dreams she's an air ace on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines.
Paxton is an aide to the bumbling German general.

By 1982, Bill Paxton had formed a new wave music duo with a friend, Andrew Todd Rosenthal, calling themselves Martini Ranch.

In 1988, they released their sole full-length album, "Holy Cow," with a sound not unlike Devo, which wasn't coincidental, since the record was produced by Devo's Bob Casale and featured contributions by other musicians from that band. The Devo influence is prevalent in the music video for the duo's "How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self-Culture?" directed by the ubiquitous Rocky Schenck. Anthony Michael Hall (Paxton's costar in "Weird Science") appeared in the video, as did Michael Biehn (best known for his roles in James Cameron's "The Terminator," "Aliens," and "The Abyss") and Judge Reinhold.

James Cameron directed the 1988 extended music video for the Martini Ranch song "Reach" as a biker flick-spaghetti western hybrid, featuring a showdown between an outlaw gang led by Paxton and a posse of female bounty hunters, headed by Kathryn Bigelow (Cameron's future wife and future Academy Award-winning director of "The Hurt Locker") as the "Woman with No Name" (pictured below).

Kathryn Bigelow had recently directed Paxton in "Near Dark' (1987), a sanguinary saga about a clan of nomadic vampires in the American Midwest, and "Reach" featured cameos by Bill's costars from that film, Adrian Pasdar, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. "Near Dark" itself was a reunion of sorts for director James Cameron's "Aliens" costars Paxton, Henriksen, and Goldstein (pictured below).

Hell, hell, the fangs all here: Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein,
and Bill Paxton pose for a family portrait in "Near Dark."

Paul Reiser, who played the corporate weasel in "Aliens," popped up in "Reach" (as a snake oil peddler), as did actors Bud Cort and Judge Reinhold.

Bill Paxton's wardrobe in "Reach" isn't far down the rack from his
fetching attire in "Near Dark." By the way, Paxton's "Near Dark"
costar, Lance Henriksen, literally has a monkey on his back.

Before "Reach," Kathryn Bigelow herself directed Bill Paxton in a 1987 music video for New Order's "Touched by the Hand of God." A reorganization of the post-punk group Joy Division, New Order - regarded by fans as synth-pop gods - executed a spot-on parody of big-hair bands, complete with shaggy manes, while Bigelow threw in an intentionally empty-headed chase scenario right out of '80s music videos, with a frenzied Paxton, on foot, pursuing actress Rae Dawn Chong, in a car, through heavy traffic. He smashes her windshield, they embrace, and kiss.

Paxton made a return to music videos in 2003 with a performance in Limp Bizkit's "Eat You Alive," as a lawman leading a flashlight posse through the woods in search of Thora Birch, who plays band frontman Fred Durst's willing captive. Durst himself directed the video.

Thora Birch, daughter of former adult film star Carol Connors
(best known for her X-rated roles in "Deep Throat" and "The
Erotic Adventures of Candy"), garnered critical acclaim for
her performances in "American Beauty" and "Ghost World."

"You're not weird enough to be an actor." - father John Paxton

Bill Paxton's father, John, once told him, "You're not weird enough to be an actor." Ironically, after years in the lumber business, the elder Paxton fulfilled his own acting desires. He made his acting debut in the 1980 psycho-horror opus "Brain Dead," featuring son Bill and costarring Bill Pullman, Bud Cort, and George Kennedy.

Gone Hollywood: Bill Paxton poses beside pop John
at the 2011 Kentucky Derby.

Besides roles in such action movies as "Barb Wire" (a laughable retooling of "Casablanca" with buxom Pamela Anderson as Bogey) and "Last Man Standing" (a Depression-era reboot of "A Fistful of Dollars" starring Bruce Willis), John Paxton appeared alongside his son again in the 1994 HBO western "Frank and Jesse," starring Bill as Frank James and Rob Lowe as Jesse James, 1998's "A Simple Plan," and 2001's "Frailty," which also marked Bill Paxton's directing debut.

Undoubtedly, John Paxton's best-known screen role was Bernard Houseman, the faithful butler of both Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and his son, Harry Osborn (James Franco), in the original "Spider-Man" trilogy, directed by Sam Raimi.

Playing the devoted manservant Houseman, John Paxton dutifully
attends to Harry Osborn (James Franco) in a meeting with OsCorp
aide Ellie Simkins (actress K.K. Dodds) in 2002's "Spider-Man."

Reflecting on his father's passing at the age of 91, Paxton told interviewer Marc Maron, just a few weeks before undergoing the cardiac surgery that resulted in his death, that the old man had "gotten out clean." Bill, at the same time, revealed to Maron that he had a damaged heart valve as a consequence of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever, which kept him bed-ridden for six months throughout the seventh grade.

When he died, Bill Paxton had only recently embarked on a starring role as a rogue cop in the CBS series "Training Day," based on the 2011 neo-noir crime thriller starring Denzel Washington. Thirteen episodes had already been filmed by December of 2016, of which four had aired before his February 25th passing. Bill Paxton's 22-year-old son, James Paxton (pictured below), appeared on an as-yet unaired episode of the program.

"I was thrilled to have my son guest star,' Bill Paxton gushed.

As a working actor, he once told an interviewer, "I consider myself an everyman, and there will always be an underdog quality to my stuff." He would describe his screen persona as that of "a very straight-looking guy, very old-fashioned."

In 1998, Bill Paxton told Roger Ebert, "Every day you're taking a final exam as an actor." He said, "It's always a little frustrating when you're reading a script after ten guys ahead of you have had a chance to pick it over. You can almost see the bread crumbs. I haven't had a role that's propelled me into major stardom. Sure, I've had roles that put me on the playing field. A lot of base hits. No home runs." Shortly before his death, he reminded interviewer Marc Maron, "There will always be character films, and they are important to people."

Shop class

"One thing I like about films," Paxton told Maron, "is I dig being part of a concerted group that are trying to make something...We're all so alienated and so isolated in modern society is so many ways, even though we have all this technology to supposedly connect, we're as isolated as we've ever been. I kind of dreamed of the Renaissance, where...you become an apprentice in a guild, and it takes all these different disciplines to build a cathedral. That's kind of what it takes  to make a film. It's one of the last of the great guild crafts."

He emphasized to Marc Maron that throughout his career, he "really wanted to just be directing...I've had three times in my life where I've gotten to work in my own shop. And they were the happiest times, the most productive times, really the most giving times." His first experience found him producing and starring in a personal project titled "Traveller," a 1997 drama about a clan of Irish grifters in rural North Carolina costarring Mark Wahlberg (pictured below) and Julianna Marguilies.

"Traveller" was directed by Jack N. Green, a cinematographer who worked on a number of Clint Eastwood movies, as well as the one picture that thrust Bill Paxton into the spotlight as a leading man, 1996's "Twister" (pictured below, with Helen Hunt), executive-produced by Steven Spielberg.

As mentioned, Bill Paxton made his directing debut with the 2001 psychological thriller "Frailty," limning the strange family bond between two young brothers and their fundamentally religious father (Paxton) who comes to believe that an angel from on high commanded him and his offspring to kill demons masquerading as human beings. Matthew McConaughey portrayed the guilt-ridden adult son who ultimately confronts the FBI with his sordid past.

Bill Paxton shares that old-time religion with his boys in "Frailty."

Critic Roger Ebert dubbed "Frailty" "an extraordinary work." He noted, "Perhaps only a first-time director, an actor who does not depend on directing for his next job, would have had the nerve to make this movie. It is uncompromised..Paxton is a gifted director; he and his collaborators...have made a complex film that grips us with the intensity of a simple one."

In 2005, Paxton directed "The Greatest Game Ever Played," a period drama about the early life of famed golfer Francis Ouimet, known as the "father of amateur golf" in the U.S., portrayed by Shia LaBeouf. Like "Traveller" and "Frailty," the film was co-produced by David Blocker, a son of "Bonanza" actor Dan Blocker.

Director Bill Paxton poses with Shia LaBeouf on the set of
"The Greatest Game Ever Played."

"This is the second film directed by the actor Bill Paxton, and it could not possibly be more different from his first," Roger Ebert noted in his review. "'Frailty' was dark and brilliant and filled with fearful prospects; now this sunny film, which plays almost as if it's emotional rehab for Paxton...I have no idea if the movie is based, stroke for stroke, on the actual competition at the 1913 U.S. Open. I guess I could find out, but I don't want to know. I like it this way."

Before his untimely passing, Paxton had long harbored a passion to bring an end-all miniseries about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to light. When he was eight years old, he accompanied his father and older brother to see JFK emerge from the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, 1963, hours before his assassination in Dallas. A photograph in the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (formerly the Texas School Book Depository) clearly displayed young Bill Paxton hoisted on the shoulders of an unidentified spectator (pictured below) in the Fort Worth crowd.

Paxton had approached Tom Hanks, who costarred alongside Bill and Kevin Bacon in "Apollo 13," as well as producing Paxton's acclaimed HBO series "Big Love" (featuring Paxton as a contemporary fundamentalist Mormon still practicing polygamy), about backing the Kennedy miniseries, but despite Tom's shared enthusiasm, the project remained unrealized.


"It was movies I had always wanted to be in. I'm into the whole thing...I love watching what goes on behind the camera. My heroes are Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd - complete filmmakers." - Bill Paxton

When Bill Paxton died, his family released a statement, which read, in part, "Bill's passion for the arts was felt by all who knew him, and his warmth and tireless energy were undeniable."

Bill Paxton and James Cameron relax on the set of "Titanic."
Cameron recalled, "When another actor fell out at the last minute,
I called Bill to play treasure hunter Brock Lovett...He signed up
without reading the script. Then he notched up another indelible
performance, and helped propel that film to a Best Picture Oscar."

For Time, James Cameron wrote, "Bill and I started together on low-budget Roger Corman films and came up together through the '80s and '90s, working together as actor and director...For 36 years he was one of my closest friends, a friendship that went  far beyond our work together...He was always bursting with enthusiasm and ideas. I never met an actor or filmmaker who didn't say he was one of the most likable people they've ever worked with."

"Of course, this business isn't about being liked," Cameron added, "but to stay sane and decent while doing some of the best work out there was Bill's unique gift...With all of Bill's gusto for life, his pure joy in the human experience, it's difficult for me to know that he's gone. The world seems quieter. Less filled with spirit."