Well, we have our “three,” all in today’s Times obits: Spalding Gray, Frances Dee, and Paul Winfield:
Paul Winfield, the award-winning actor who came to fame during the renaissance of African American cinema in the 1970s in such films as “Sounder” and “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich,” died of a heart attack Sunday night at Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. He was 62. Winfield had been an ill health, suffering from obesity most of his life and diabetes, said his agent, Michael Livingston. The tall, imposing Winfield was only the third African American to receive an Academy Award nomination for best actor when he was honored for his performance as Nathan Lee Morgan, the loving sharecropper father in the 1972 classic “Sounder.” Marlon Brando won the best actor Oscar that year for “The Godfather.”
Though “Sounder” catapulted Winfield to fame, he did not follow in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier to become a black superstar. Cast mainly in character roles, Winfield consistently worked in film, television and theater, receiving an Emmy in 1995 for his role as a federal judge on “Picket Fences.” He had previously received Emmy nominations for his lauded performance as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1978 miniseries “King” and another in 1979 for “Roots: the Next Generation.” Moving back to Los Angeles in the 1980s, he appeared in such films as “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and starred on stage in works by Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov. He starred opposite Denzel Washington in Ron Milner’s play “Checkmates” in Los Angeles, and repeated his role in the 1988 Broadway production. The 1990s began on a high note with a juicy role as a judge in the 1990 hit “Presumed Innocent.” He appeared in Los Angeles opposite Carroll in “Love Letters” and won the Emmy for his guest-starring role on “Picket Fences.” Winfield admitted that he hit a dry spell in the 1990s. Then in 1998, he was offered to narrate the A&E crime documentary series “City Confidential.”
It’s inexcusable – but the first thing I associate him with is “The Charmings,” a short-lived sitcom from the late '80s about Prince Charming and Snow White married and living in suburbia – he provided the voice of the wicked mother-in-law’s magic mirror.
And, yeah, he was in some good stuff also. :rolleyes:
As much as I enjoyed his other work, I hated his City Confidential voiceovers—the Smarm Factor is turned up to 120%. I’ll be nice, though, and blame the director. “Paul—can we get it a little smarmier?”
It’s a sad day in Trekworld. In addition to his role in Star Trek II, Paul Winfield appeared in the classic Next Generation episode “Darmok”. I associate him most with Trek, but I also loved his City Confidential narrations. I didn’t find them smarmy at all – I thought they added a touch of noir drama to an otherwise routine true crime show.
One of my favorite roles of his is that of the dog trainer who has to reprogram a racist mutt in the Sam Fuller cult classic White Dog. He was also brief but memorable in The Terminator. Sad news.
Before I knew he was a respected actor, I knew Paul Winfield as a pug breeder and enthusiast. I once arrived late to a pug show, and was having trouble finding the program table so that I could buy a program. Mr. Winfield came to my assistance and helped me find what I needed. He was a charming gentleman and I was flattered. Later that day, I learned he kept a stable of pugs all named after Shakespearean characters, and even later I learned he was a famous actor when I saw him in Terminator. Sixty-two is too damned young to die! I’ll miss him.
Paul Winfield fell in love with the architect Charles Gallan in the early 1970s and the two lived together very happily and pretty much openly until Gallan’s painful and lengthy death from bone cancer in 2002. During a substance induced publicity stunt, Britney Spears and Jason Alexander were married for 2 days (during which they had hundreds of benefits that Gallan & Winfield could not claim in 30 years, including the death benefits [pensions, probate rights, etc.] that may have come in quite handy). The difference between these two unions is, of course, that Gallan and Winfield’s was a shallow mockery whose legal recognition would “threaten the sacred institution of marriage as we know it” and so vile that a Constitutional Amendment is required (according to our fearless leader G.W. Bush, 1st Lt., AWOL division) to protect the rest of the nation from its venomous clutches.
Thanks, AGuy, that was the first role I thought of too. He got extra respect from me for playing opposite not only a dog (never an easy job for an actor), but one of the oddest pair of costars in movie history: Kristy McNichol and Burl Ives.
I loved his voiceovers, smarm and all. In fact, it drove my crazy for a while trying to figure out who’s voice that was. I was so relieved when he got his narrated by credit at the start of the show. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll even watch it anymore now that he’s gone.
So if Paul Winfield’s the third, who are the two who will follow Robert Pastorelli?
To me the most irritating thing about that show is that I have literally known them to take a full third of the show before even getting to the murder. It’s usually because of an incredibly detailed yet trite description of the town: …the type of place where kids save their allowance and collect cans and use them to buy cotton candy at the travelling carnivals that set up rides over on Dead Possum Highway… where 80 year old ladies weave afghans and drape them over the new sofas with the eye burning dyes that are included in their newlywed grandchildren’s new doublewide… where there is rarely a movie without an explosion shown at the singlescreened Ocelot Cinema, where tickets are still a dollar and popcorn is free for the first five people… where Garth Brooks CDs are played at high school proms using jerry rigged players made of coconuts and the hair from a once loved goat… where women marry at 18, have five children by the time their twenty-one but are still virgins… where El Caminos still travel down dirt roads… YES I GET THE BUGGING POINT! IT’S A SMALL TOWN WHERE NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS! NOW BRING ON THE MADRE FREAKING MURDER!
Damn. Another good one gone. Didn’t he also play Franklin’s father on B5?
I like his voice, but the material they gave him to read for City Confidential was a bit too much. I’m not sure what it was too much of, but it was definitly too much.
Forced! That’s what it was too much of! The writers were trying to prove how clever they were with their similies and metaphors and double entendres and puns and things, and what they wound up with sounds smug, self-satisfied, and condescending. A kind of “we know and are better than all the chumps in this small town, 'cause they never believed it could happen here and it did and we knew it could because we are so sophisticated and knowledgeable about human behaviour! NYAAAAAAH!!!” attitude.
All it did for me was annoy because that beautiful voice was having to repeat such drivel.
“The Two Ladies shall catch your fall.
For, they are the ones who catch us all.
Two great Ladies held apart,
The Lady Light, the Lady Dark.
And, we shall bring you home.”
PastAllReason
Darned yeah !!! I almost forget he appeared on “Wise Guy” as record company owner/producer, etc Isaac Twine. Yeah that was a great character and he played it with style and enthusiasm (as he did all his other performances).
I notice a lot of comments on Mr Winfield’s early demise. How’s this for injustice? William Shatner will turn 73 this March !!!
