Rough day in Hollywood. - Darren McGavin dead at 83.

February 25, 2006 9:07 PM

Another favorite old actor has shuffled off the mortal coil. I will always remember Darren McGavin best as The Old Man, Ralphie Parker's father, in the best Christmas movie ever made (so says I!), but he had a long and active career in films and television.

Sigh. I hope there is lots and lots of turkey in heaven, and that the Bumpuses' dogs are nowhere to be found.
posted by John Smallberries (50 comments total)

Wow. Kolchack and Mr. Limpet in one weekend.

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posted by JHarris at 9:11 PM on February 25, 2006

No!

I loved him as Kolchak. The Old Man was icing on the cake.

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posted by kalimac at 9:12 PM on February 25, 2006

Oh Fuuuuuuudddddddggggggeeeee . . .

I'm afraid I didn't know him outside of A Christmas Story, but I've seen the film countless times. A classic.
posted by aladfar at 9:19 PM on February 25, 2006

Kolchak was his best role...but seeing him in any performance was pretty damn cool. He had a "sensitive" gruffness about him. RIP.
posted by davidmsc at 9:21 PM on February 25, 2006

Poor old Kolchak. The monsters got him at last.
posted by fleetmouse at 9:22 PM on February 25, 2006

"Fra-gee-lay...it must be Italian!"

RIP, Mr. McGavin.
posted by tristeza at 9:22 PM on February 25, 2006

not a fingah!
posted by glenwood at 9:33 PM on February 25, 2006

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posted by mazola at 9:34 PM on February 25, 2006

Wow. Kolchack and Mr. Limpet in one weekend.

... who starred together in "No Deposit, No Return".

Nuts.
posted by mazola at 9:39 PM on February 25, 2006

First Knotts, then McGavin. Where will the curse of Hot Lead, Cold Feet end??!?!?!
posted by jonson at 9:51 PM on February 25, 2006

I remember him as Mike Hammer.
R.I.P.

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posted by unrepentanthippie at 10:00 PM on February 25, 2006

man, I never would have thought he was two years older than Don Knotts.

And The Night Stalker freaked me out as a kid.
posted by chococat at 10:24 PM on February 25, 2006

Kolchak yes.

I've never yet been able to stomach A Christmas Story all the way through. I think it only works if watching it was part of your childhood. Sort of the same reason so many seem stuck on that rock music crap.
posted by HTuttle at 10:26 PM on February 25, 2006

i'm old enough to remember him as Mike Hammer, the Mickey Spilane tough guy detective. of the 50's. Back in those days he stood out as someone who actually knew how to act and did..

Rest well, Darren
posted by donfactor at 10:26 PM on February 25, 2006

He was good in a few X-Files episodes, too.
posted by scarabic at 11:07 PM on February 25, 2006

Kolchak... always Kolchak.

But... also as that really evil fixer guy in "The Natural".

RIP, Darren.
posted by psmealey at 11:16 PM on February 25, 2006

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Kolchak, gone! Now I want to see the Mike Hammer work...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:45 PM on February 25, 2006

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posted by blastrid at 12:24 AM on February 26, 2006

Shit.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:27 AM on February 26, 2006

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posted by cows of industry at 12:34 AM on February 26, 2006

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posted by kosher_jenny at 12:47 AM on February 26, 2006

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posted by Dreamghost at 12:57 AM on February 26, 2006

And The Night Stalker freaked me out as a kid.

The original one (1972) with the vampire scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. Old Dracula with his cape and bats seemed too artificial to be scary, but Janos Skorzeny seemed like he could be right behind me.
posted by pracowity at 1:02 AM on February 26, 2006

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posted by fixedgear at 3:23 AM on February 26, 2006

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posted by paddbear at 3:53 AM on February 26, 2006

True story... back in '72, someone broke into my house while I was watching The Night Stalker. Alone. In the dark. Kolchak and I grabbed a baseball bat, called the police, and trembled.

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posted by Corky at 4:07 AM on February 26, 2006

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Sylvester McCoy's outfit in Doctor Who was said to have been inspired by Kolchak's.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:20 AM on February 26, 2006

Someone call Barbara Feldon and warn her to be verrrry careful.
posted by pracowity at 4:33 AM on February 26, 2006

He's up in heaven now, putting a horrible lamp in the window and changing fuses in world record time.
posted by Ber at 7:00 AM on February 26, 2006

I think it only works if watching it was part of your childhood.

We watched it at lunch at work a few years ago - I'd never seen it before - and while it was no "It's a Wonderful Life," it's a great movie to quote.

"It's a major award!"
"Frag- ee-lay!"
"You'll shoot your eye out with that thing!"
posted by tizzie at 8:04 AM on February 26, 2006

From pracowity's IMDB link:

Don Knotts said that one day, while he was filming scenes for this project in the San Francisco airport, a director approached him and said he would like to cast him in a dramatic film one day. Although it never happened, Knotts said he was flattered by the offer. The director was Sam Peckinpah.

He probably couldn't come up with a movie that only needed one bullet.

RIP, Don and Darren
posted by briank at 8:05 AM on February 26, 2006

As a kid, the monsters on The Night Stalker both terrified and intrigued me. I'd spend the night with my grandparents in their spooky old house, wait for them to fall asleep, and quietly sneak into the room where the television was so I could watch the program. Even though I knew I'd have nightmares for the next few days, I tuned in anyway. Kolchak's exploits were the gateway drug to a lifelong addiction to the macabre. The thought of Pere Malfait or the rakshasa from The Horror in the Heights skulking around in the dead of night still gives me a rush and the willies. Farewell, Mr. McGavin, and thanks for leaving me with a compulsion to keep holy water handy at all times.
posted by font_snob at 8:20 AM on February 26, 2006

My first exposure to him was in the movie Hangar 18 when I was a kid.

Interestingly, I just picked it up on DVD a couple weeks ago. I loved the parts directly involving the alien technology and history, but the rest didn't hold up as well as I'd remembered. Him being in the movie, however, brought the whole affair up a notch.

Then, of course, ended up enjoying him in Kolchak, Christmas Story, etc. He just had a very special presence and character that just made whatever he did enjoyable.
posted by Fortyseven at 8:49 AM on February 26, 2006

He was an unabashedly hammy actor, and I loved that. By the way, he is hilarious in the almost-never-seen Blood and Concrete, playing a hard-boiled to the point of insanity private dick. The scene where he takes Billy Zane for a drive and then menaces by glaring at him -- endlessly -- while driving, in the meanwhile never looking at the road, is worth the other two hours this film steals from your life.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:14 AM on February 26, 2006

You used up all the glue on purpose!!

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posted by sdrawkcab at 10:32 AM on February 26, 2006

The Night Stalker movie is still scary. It freaked me out as a kid, but I watched it a few years ago as an adult (in the dark) and it is still pretty damn frightening.

RIP.
posted by marxchivist at 10:41 AM on February 26, 2006

I can't believe he was actually older than Don Knotts.
posted by jrossi4r at 12:34 PM on February 26, 2006

The Night Stalker scared the crap out of me too as a wee one. I still remember the one where he had to try and kill the zombie by pouring salt in his mouth and then sewing the lips together.
posted by vronsky at 2:54 PM on February 26, 2006

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posted by evilcolonel at 3:11 PM on February 26, 2006

god dammit. goodbye kolchak and mr parker.
posted by shmegegge at 4:17 PM on February 26, 2006

Just a few weeks ago I bought the DVD with The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler. They both hold up pretty well, and are scary enough that I decided not to show them to my kids. McGavin was great. I read someplace that the X-Files wanted to use him as Kolchak on that show, but he had some kind of grudge against Dan Curtis, the Night Stalker's producer, so he refused to do it. Instead he played a retired FBI agent of some sort. I'll always wonder how great an appearance by Carl Kolchak on X-Files would have been.

I watched the first episode of the new Night Stalker and remained unimpressed. But they did do some computer trickery in the beginning to have McGavin appear in the background in the newsroom for one scene. I liked that.
posted by Man-Thing at 4:18 PM on February 26, 2006

Wow.

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posted by snsranch at 6:16 PM on February 26, 2006

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posted by pmurray63 at 7:24 PM on February 26, 2006

The Night Stalker scared the crap out of me too as a wee one. I still remember the one where he had to try and kill the zombie by pouring salt in his mouth and then sewing the lips together.

Yes! Wow, I had that locked away somewhere in my head but it just came flooding back when I read that.
I remember watching that with my brother. It's kind of intertwined with memories of watching an episode of The Snoop Sisters with Alice Cooper as a witch...and also Night Gallery with some weird little creature in a woman's apartment, trying to kill her with a knife, and she finally cooked it in her oven.
Those all blend into one scary 70's moment, watching TV with my older brother.
posted by chococat at 7:27 PM on February 26, 2006

Kolchak kicked some serious paranormal ass. Creeped the hell out of me as a kid, they don't make TV like that anymore.

chococat, that Night Gallery episode might have been one the episodes of the Karen Black classic Trilogy of Terror. And not to go too off topic, but you might also remember "Don't be Afraid of the Dark".

RIP Mr. McGavin. Hope you're playing a mean hand of poker with Don Knotts right this moment.
posted by dbiedny at 10:02 PM on February 26, 2006

The 1972 "Night Stalker" = best made-for-TV movie EVAH.

But "A Christmas Story" is only the second-best Christmas movie evah. (No. 1 is "Die Hard.")
posted by lexalexander at 9:29 AM on February 27, 2006

Just watched a fine Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode with him in it this weekend -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0508360

didn't know he had passed - one last gunsling for ol' Kolchack - I'm bummed now.
posted by mctsonic at 9:37 AM on February 27, 2006

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posted by Hesychia at 1:53 PM on February 27, 2006

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[this sucks.]
posted by ktoad at 5:56 PM on February 27, 2006

chococat, that Night Gallery episode might have been one the episodes of the Karen Black classic Trilogy of Terror.

That's exactly what it was. I remember that crazy doll sawing it's way through a Samsonite suitcase or something. Totally freaked me out.
And I just remembered the ending where she phones her mother and tells to come over...and then we see she's holding the knife...
I could have sworn it was a Night Gallery episode. It says that it was written by Richard Matheson, who was a Twilight Zone/Night Gallery writer, so I was on the right track anyway.

And did you notice the Trivia for Trilogy of Terror on the imdb site:

Trivia: During the "Julie" segment, a drive-in theater can be seen showing the movie "The Night Stalker". This is an in-joke reference to director Dan Curtis's TV movie The Night Stalker (1972) (TV).

Talk about coming full circle. Weird.
posted by chococat at 6:43 PM on February 27, 2006