Robert Forster
Robert Forster | |
|---|---|
 Forster in 2009 | |
| Born | Robert Wallace Foster Jr. July 13, 1941 Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 11, 2019 (aged 78) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Education | University of Rochester |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1965–2019 |
| Spouses |
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| Partner | Denise Grayson (2004–his death) |
| Children | 4 |
Robert Wallace Foster Jr. (July 13, 1941 – October 11, 2019), known professionally as Robert Forster, was an American actor. He made his screen debut as Private L.G. Williams in John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), followed by a starring role as news reporter John Cassellis in the landmark New Hollywood film Medium Cool (1969). For his portrayal of bail bondsman Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Forster played a variety of both leading and supporting roles in over 100 films, including Captain Dan Holland in The Black Hole (1979), Detective David Madison in Alligator (1980), Abdul Rafai in The Delta Force (1986), Colonel Partington in Me, Myself & Irene (2000), Scott Thorson in The Descendants (2011), General Edward Clegg in Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and its sequel London Has Fallen (2016), Norbert Everhardt in What They Had (2018), and Sheriff Hadley in The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020).
He also had prominent roles in television series such as Banyon (1971–73), Nakia (1974), Karen Sisco (2003–04), Heroes (2007–08), Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) and the Breaking Bad episode "Granite State" as Ed "The Disappearer" Galbraith, for which he won the Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role on Television. He reprised the role in the film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) and Better Call Saul (2020).
Early life
[edit]Forster was born and raised in Rochester, New York.[1] His mother was Italian American, while his father was of English and Irish descent.[2] He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Rochester. He performed in a number of plays in college, and decided to become an actor.[citation needed]
Forster added another "R" to his surname as there was another member of the Screen Actors Guild named Robert Foster.[3]
Career
[edit]Early stardom
[edit]Forster made his Broadway debut in 1965 in Mrs. Dally Had a Lover, opposite Arlene Francis and Ralph Meeker.[4][5] He also starred in productions of Come Blow Your Horn, The Big Knife, and The Glass Menagerie.[6]
Forster's movie career began strongly, when John Huston cast him in the important role of Private Williams in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando. The movie featured a famous scene where Forster rode naked on a horse.[7] Forster also appeared in episodes of the TV series N.Y.P.D., Judd for the Defense and Premiere, the latter also featuring Dustin Hoffman and Sally Kellerman. Forster was then cast in another key role in an important movie: part-Indian Army scout Nick Tana in Robert Mulligan's The Stalking Moon (1968); he was billed third, after Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint.
Forster had a key support role in Justine (1969), directed by George Cukor and starring Dirk Bogarde, which was a huge flop. He starred in the critically acclaimed[citation needed] film Medium Cool (1969), which was also a big hit commercially.[8]
Forster played a tormented priest in Pieces of Dreams (1970) and a student filmmaker in Cover Me Babe (1970), which was a box office flop.[9] He was cast in the pilot for a TV series Banyon, playing a private eye in late 1930s in Los Angeles, then starred in Journey Through Rosebud which was not released theatrically. He directed for the Rochester Community Theatre.[10]
A year after the pilot for Banyon was made, it was picked up for a series but had only a short run. After this cancellation Forster said his career "started to slip and then it slipped and then it slipped."[7]
In 1973, he briefly returned to Broadway playing Stanley Kowalski in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, opposite Julie Harris.[11][12] He also played Juror No. 3 in the first New York stage production of Twelve Angry Men at the