Actors You Recognize, But Don’t Know Their Name: R.I.P. Philip Baker Hall

At some point during the early days of the pandemic, I started a series on Facebook entitled “Actors you recognize, but don’t know their names.” The series, which I moved to this space, paid tribute to such wonderful performers as Lynne Thigpen, Paul Dooley, Mary Kay Place, and Gary Cole (click on their names for their entries), highlighted their credits, and, obviously, aimed to help film fans put names to the familiar faces they’ve seen on screens many times.

 

One actor I had always meant to get to was somebody who could be considered the King of the actors you’ve seen, but can’t name: Philip Baker Hall, who passed away on June 12 at age 90.

 

Many obits called attention to what’s possibly Hall’s best known role: Lieutenant Bookman, on the wildly popular sitcom, Seinfeld (“The Library” S3E5 10/16/91). Watch a montage of Hall’s hilarious scenes from the episode here:

 

Hall really crushing it as the stern, Dragnet-style authority figure led to him being cast in a lot of movies and TV shows after its broadcast. But Hall hadn’t been doing too shabby in the years leading up to it as he had worked steadily since his first film part in COWARDS (alternate title: LOVE IN ’72) in 1970, and his first television role in the TV movie, THE LAST SURVIVORS in 1975.

 

Except for a part playing a doctor in Michael Crichton’s COMA (1978), on the big screen, Hall toiled in some pretty obscure stuff (THROW OUT THE ANCHOR, anyone?), but for his seventh feature, Hall scored a major role, President Richard M. Nixon, for Robert Altman’s SECRET HONOR (1984). A sweaty, obsessed, and beyond blustery Hall is the only actor in the one-man show that is Altman’s breakdown of the disgraced former Commander-in-Chief, and it’s a staggering piece of work.

From Roger Ebert’s review of SECRET HONOR: “Nixon is portrayed by Philip Baker Hall, an actor previously unknown to me, with such savage intensity, such passion, such venom, such scandal, that we cannot turn away. Hall looks a little like the real Nixon; he could be a cousin, and he sounds a little like him. That's close enough. This is not an impersonation, it’s a performance.”

 

Since that should’ve been a breakthrough part, Hall steadily worked in film, putting in a small roles in such notable fare as NOTHING IN COMMON, SAY ANYTHING, GHOSTBUSTERS 2, and AN INNOCENT MAN, while regularly popping up in programs such as Benson, Miami Vice, Family Ties, Falcon Crest, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, and L.A. Law.

 

But after booking Bookman on Seinfeld (he also reprised Lt. Bookman on the Seinfeld finale in 1998), his TV career exploded, and in the years that followed he appeared on everything from Cheers to 3rd Rock from the Sun to Millennium to Chicago Hope to Monk to The West Wing to Curb Your Enthusiasm to Big Love to Children’s Hospital to Psych to Modern Family to The Newsroom to Bojack Horseman to Boston Legal to Modern Family - to name over a dozen.

 

Hall’s film career was equally prolific post Seinfeld From the mid ‘90s on he was in a great many films including THE ROCK, AIR FORCE ONE, SOUR GRAPES, THE TRUMAN SHOW, RUSH HOUR (was also in the sequels), ENEMY OF THE STATE, THE INSIDER, CRADLE WILL ROCK, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, BRUCE ALMIGHTY, ZODIAC (was also in THE ZODIAC), ARGO, and his last film, the Shirley MacLaine vehicle, THE LAST WORD (2017).

But the grand thespian’s finest work has to be in the three films that he did with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson: HARD EIGHT (1996), BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997), and MAGNOLIA (1999). I just rewatched HARD EIGHT, which was Anderson’s directorial debut, as it had been a long time since I’d seen it. I’m glad I did, because I was reminded at what a confidently constructed, and stylishly gritty work it is, and how masterful Hall was as its protagonist, Sydney, who the premise posits as a gambling mentor to the film’s other lead, John C. Reilly as lovable schlub, John Finnegan.

It’s intoxicating, and well worth a streaming rental (I watched it on Amazon Prime) to see Hall suavely glide through the neon-lit casinos of Reno, Vegas, and Atlantic City with his cranky sexy cool swagger.

 

The film’s original title was SYDNEY, a name inspired by Hall’s character in MIDNIGHT RUN, but he’s not supposed to be the same character as it’s “Sidney” in the previous movie. Although the name isn't mentioned, the movie is an expansion of a short film by Anderson, that features Hall, CIGARETTES AND COFFEE (not to be confused with Jim Jarmusch's 2003 anthology film COFFEE AND CIGARETTES), which you can watch on YouTube.

 

I was also reminded that in one scene, in which Sydney is being hassled by Samuel L. Jackson as a scheming casino security guard. Jackson says, “I know all those guys you know – Floyd Gondoli, Jimmy Gator, Mumbles O’Malley.”

 

This foreshadows that Hall would play characters by those names in Anderson’s next two films:

Porn distributor mogul, Floyd Gondoli, in BOOGIE NIGHTS:

Game show host, Jimmy Gator, in MAGNOLIA:

Now sadly, a movie featuring Hall’s PTA trilogy completer, Mumbles O’Malley, will never materialize. 

 

R.I.P. Philip Michael Hall

More later...