fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Warren Mercer Oates (July 5, 1928 – April 3, 1982) was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah, including The Wild Bunch (1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Another of his most acclaimed performances was as officer Sam Wood in In the Heat of the Night (1967). Oates starred in numerous films during the early 1970s that have since achieved cult status, such as The Hired Hand (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), and Race with the Devil (1975). Oates also portrayed John Dillinger in the biopic Dillinger (1973) and as the supporting character U.S. Army Sergeant Hulka in the military comedy Stripes (1981). Another notable appearance was in the classic New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs (1977), in which he played the commander of the American forces in the country.

Warren Oates
Oates in 1963
Born	Warren Mercer Oates (1928-07-05)July 5, 1928 Depoy, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	April 3, 1982(1982-04-03) (aged 53) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1953–1982
Spouse(s)	Teddy Louise Farmer ​ ​ (m. 1959; div. 1966)​ Vickery Turner ​ ​ (m. 1969; div. 1974)​ Judy A. Jones ​ ​ (m. 1977)​
Children	4

Early life

Warren Oates was born and reared in Depoy, a tiny rural community in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, located just a few miles west of Greenville, the county seat. According to the federal census of 1940, he was the younger of two sons born to Sarah Alice (née Mercer) and Bayless Earle Oates, who owned a general store.[1][2][3] His brother, Gordon, was five years his senior.[3] On his father's side, Warren was of English, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. He attended Louisville Male High School in Louisville, Kentucky, until 1945, but did not graduate from that institution. He did, however, later earn a high-school equivalency diploma. After high school, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for two years (1946-1948), serving in its air wing as an aircraft mechanic and reaching the rank of corporal.[4] Oates became interested in theater while attending the University of Louisville, where in 1953, he starred in several plays produced by the school's Little Theater Company. Four years later, in New York City, he got an opportunity to star in a live production of the television series Studio One.[5]

Career

Oates moved to Los Angeles, where in the 1950s, he began to establish himself in guest roles in weekly television Westerns, including Wagon Train, Tombstone Territory, Buckskin, Rawhide, Trackdown, Tate, The Rebel, Wanted Dead or Alive, The Virginian, Have Gun – Will Travel, Lawman, The Big Valley, Bat Masterson, and Gunsmoke. Oates first met Peckinpah when he played a variety of guest roles in The Rifleman (1958–1963), a popular television series sometimes directed by Peckinpah. He also played a supporting role in Peckinpah's short-lived series The Westerner in 1960.[6] The collaboration continued as he worked in Peckinpah's early films Ride the High Country (1962) and Major Dundee (1965).

"There were 40 [Western] series, and I went from one to the other. I started out playing the third bad guy on a horse and worked my way up to the number-one bad guy," Oates once quipped.[7]

In the episode "Subterranean City" (October 14, 1958) of the syndicated Rescue 8, Oates played a gang member, Pete, who is the nephew of series character Skip Johnson (Lang Jeffries). In the story line, rescuers Johnson and Wes Cameron (Jim Davis) search for a lost girl in the sewer tunnels and encounter three criminals hiding out underground. Pete soon breaks with his gang companions and joins the firemen Wes and Skip in locating the missing child.[8]

In 1961, Oates guest-starred in the episode "Artie Moon" in NBC's The Lawless Years crime drama about the 1920s. In 1962, he appeared as Ves Painter in the short-lived ABC series Stoney Burke, co-starring Jack Lord, a program about rodeo contestants.

Oates also played in a number of guest roles on The Twilight Zone (in "The Purple Testament" and "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms", in which he costarred with Randy Boone and Ron Foster), The Outer Limits ("The Mutant" [1964]), Combat! ("The Pillbox" [1964]) and Lost in Space ("Welcome Stranger" [1965]). During the 1960s and 1970s, he guest-starred on such shows as Twelve O'Clock High ("The Hotshot" [1965]), Lancer, and The Virginian.

In addition to Peckinpah, Oates worked with several major directors of his era, including Leslie Stevens in the 1960 film Private Property, his first starring role; Norman Jewison in In the Heat of the Night (1967); Joseph L. Mankiewicz in There Was a Crooked Man... (1970); John Milius in Dillinger (1973); Terrence Malick in Badlands (1973); Philip Kaufman in The White Dawn (1974); William Friedkin in The Brink's Job (1978); and Steven Spielberg in 1941 (1979).

He appeared in the Sherman Brothers' musical version of Tom Sawyer (1973), as Muff Potter, the town drunk. He also starred in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), Return of the Seven (1966), The Shooting (filmed in 1965, released in 1968), The Split (1968), The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973), Cockfighter (1974), Drum (1976), and China 9, Liberty 37 (1978), and played the title role in a 1971 crime drama, Chandler. Oates costarred three times with friend Peter Fonda in The Hired Hand (1971), Race with the Devil (1975), and 92 in the Shade (1975).

While making a guest appearance on a segment of the Western television series Dundee and the Culhane, Oates managed to steal the show with his off-camera antics and bloopers that had everyone on the set rolling. After a long day of filming, he headed over and set his footprints in concrete along with all the other stars who appeared at Apacheland Movie Ranch.[9] During this time in mid-1967, In the Heat of the Night became a blockbuster summer movie. Oates had played Officer Sam Wood, a peeping-tom policeman.

Oates was cast in Roger Donaldson's 1977 New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs together with New Zealand actor Sam Neill. A political thriller with action film elements, Sleeping Dogs follows the lead character "Smith" (Neill) as New Zealand plunges into a police state, as a fascist government institutes martial law after industrial disputes flare into violence. Smith gets caught between the special police and a growing resistance movement, and reluctantly becomes involved. Oates plays the role of Willoughby, commander of the American forces stationed in New Zealand and working with the New Zealand fascist government to find and subdue "rebels" (the resistance movement).

His partnership with Peckinpah resulted in two of his most famous film roles. In the 1969 Western classic The Wild Bunch, he portrayed Lyle Gorch, a long-time outlaw who chooses to die with his friends during the film's violent conclusion. According to his wife at the time, Teddy, Oates had the choice of starring in Support Your Local Sheriff!, to be filmed in Los Angeles, or The Wild Bunch in Mexico. "He had done Return of the Seven in Mexico; he got hepatitis, plus dysentery, but off he went again with Sam [Peckinpah]. He loved going on location. He loved the adventure of it. He had great admiration for Sam. Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman were the two directors with whom Warren would work anytime, anywhere."[10] In Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the dark 1974 action/tragedy also filmed in Mexico, Oates played the lead role of Bennie, a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck musician and bartender hoping to make a final score. The character was reportedly based on Peckinpah. For authenticity, Oates wore the director's sunglasses while filming scenes of the production.

Although the Peckinpah film roles are his best-known, his most critically acclaimed role is GTO in Monte Hellman's 1971 cult classic Two-Lane Blacktop. The film, although a failure at the box office, is studied in film schools as a treasure of the 1970s, in large part due to Oates' heartbreaking portrayal of GTO. Film critic Leonard Maltin remarked that Oates' performance in this film was as good as any he had seen and should have won the Oscar.

A year before his death, Oates costarred with Bill Murray in the 1981 military comedy Stripes. In the role of the drill sergeant, Sgt. Hulka, Oates played the straight man to Murray's comedic character. The film was a huge financial success, earning $85 million at the box office. In 1982, he costarred opposite Jack Nicholson in director Tony Richardson's The Border.

In 1981, Oates also costarred as a fanatical Southern preacher-turned-Confederate officer in The Blue and the Gray, a CBS TV miniseries that aired in November 1982. His last two films were not released until 1983: Blue Thunder and Tough Enough, both filmed in late 1981. Both films are dedicated to him, along with Monte Hellman's 1988 film Iguana, which ends with the titles "For Warren".

Death

Oates was ill with influenza in the weeks before his death.[11] On April 3, 1982, at the age of 53, he died of a heart attack while taking an afternoon nap at his home in Los Angeles, after having experienced chest pains and shortness of breath earlier that day.[7] An autopsy determined that he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.[12] After his funeral, in accordance with Oates' wishes, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at his ranch in Montana.[13]

Legacy

Oates has a dedicated cult following because of his performances in not only Peckinpah's films, but also in Monte Hellman's independent works, his films with Peter Fonda, and in a number of B movies from the 1970s.[14][15] During a screening of Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, Richard Linklater introduced the film, and gave 16 reasons why viewers should love it. The sixth was: "Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates."[5]

The documentary film Warren Oates: Across the Border was produced by Tom Thurman in 1993 as a tribute to the actor's career.

Oates was the subject of a 2009 biography, Warren Oates: A Wild Life, written by Susan Compo.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Director
1959	Up Periscope	Seaman Kovacs	Uncredited	Gordon Douglas
	Yellowstone Kelly	Corporal		Gordon Douglas
1960	The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond	Eddie Diamond		Budd Boetticher
	Private Property	'Boots'		Leslie Stevens
1962	Ride the High Country	Henry Hammond		Sam Peckinpah
	Hero's Island	Wayte Giddens		Leslie Stevens
1964	Mail Order Bride	Jace		Burt Kennedy
1965	The Rounders	Harley Williams	Uncredited	Burt Kennedy
	Major Dundee	O.W. Hadley		Sam Peckinpah
1966	The Shooting	Willett Gashade		Monte Hellman
	Return of the Seven	Colbee		Burt Kennedy
1967	Welcome to Hard Times	Leo Jenks		Burt Kennedy
	In the Heat of the Night	Sam Wood		Norman Jewison
1968	The Split	Marty Gough		Gordon Flemyng
1969	Smith!	Walter Charlie		Michael O'Herlihy
	Crooks and Coronets	Marty Miller	Also released as Sophie's Place	Jim O'Connolly
	The Wild Bunch	Lyle Gorch		Sam Peckinpah
	Lanton Mills	Gunman	Short	Terrence Malick
1970	Barquero	Jake (Jacob) Remy, Gang Leader		Gordon Douglas
	There Was a Crooked Man...	Floyd Moon		Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1971	Two-Lane Blacktop	G.T.O.	Nominated - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated - New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor	Monte Hellman
	The Hired Hand	Arch Harris	Nominated - National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated - New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor	Peter Fonda
	Chandler	Chandler		Paul Magwood
1973	The Thief Who Came to Dinner	Dave Reilly		Bud Yorkin
	Tom Sawyer	Muff Potter		Don Taylor
	Kid Blue	Reese Ford		James Frawley
	Dillinger	John Dillinger		John Milius
	Badlands	Mr. Sargis		Terrence Malick
1974	The White Dawn	Billy		Philip Kaufman
	Cockfighter	Frank Mansfield		Monte Hellman
	Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia	Bennie		Sam Peckinpah
1975	Rancho Deluxe	Harmonica Player In Bar	Uncredited	Frank Perry
	Race with the Devil	Frank Stewart		Jack Starrett
	92 in the Shade	Nichol Dance		Thomas McGuane
1976	Dixie Dynamite	Mack		Lee Frost
	Drum	Hammond Maxwell		Steve Carver
1977	American Raspberry	Celebrity Sportsman	Also released under the titles Prime Time, and Funny America	Bradley R. Swirnoff
	Sleeping Dogs	Colonel Willoughby		Roger Donaldson
1978	China 9, Liberty 37	Matthew Sebanek		Monte Hellman
	The Brink's Job	'Specs' O'Keefe		William Friedkin
1979	1941	Colonel 'Madman' Maddox		Steven Spielberg
1981	Stripes	Sergeant Hulka		Ivan Reitman
1982	The Border	'Red'		Tony Richardson
1983	Blue Thunder	Captain Jack Braddock	Released posthumously, filmed in 1981	John Badham
	Tough Enough	James Neese	Released posthumously, filmed in 1981	Richard Fleischer

Television films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1968	Something for a Lonely Man	Angus Duren
1970	The Movie Murderer	Alfred Fisher
1971	The Reluctant Heroes of Hill 656	Corporal Leroy Sprague
1977	The African Queen	Captain Charlie Allnut
1978	True Grit: A Further Adventure	Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn
1979	And Baby Makes Six	Michael Kramer
	My Old Man	Frank Butler
1980	Baby Comes Home	Michael Kramer

Television

References

External links

• Warren Oates at IMDb
• Warren Oates at the TCM Movie Database
• Warren Oates at the Internet Broadway Database
• Time magazine interview

На других языках

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[de] Warren Oates

Warren Mercer Oates (* 5. Juli 1928 in Depoy, Kentucky; † 3. April 1982 in Los Angeles, Kalifornien) war ein US-amerikanischer Schauspieler. Oates war als unkonventioneller Charakterdarsteller bekannt und spielte seine wohl berühmteste Rolle als glückloser Barpianist in Bring mir den Kopf von Alfredo Garcia (1974).

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- [en] Warren Oates

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[es] Warren Oates

Warren Mercer Oates (n. 5 de julio de 1928, Depoy, Kentucky - 3 de abril de 1982, Los Ángeles, California) fue un actor de televisión y cine estadounidense. Es recordado sobre todo por su colaboración con el director Sam Peckinpah en los filmes The Wild Bunch (1969) y Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

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[ru] Оутс, Уоррен

Уоррен Мерсер Оутс (англ. Warren Mercer Oates; 5 июля 1928 — 3 апреля 1982) — американский кино- и телевизионный актёр.

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