Character actor most famous for his appearances in Roger Corman films, Dick Miller has died at 90.
Probably more famous for his appearance in Joe Dante films.
The best “that guy” actor, I loved his work.
My movie critic homie wrote a fine tribute to the man:
IMDb link. He seems to have tapered off after 2000.
An astonishing career. All those wonderful B movies including the B-est of them all: The Little Shop of Horrors. He was offered the role of Seymour but took a smaller role instead.
Throw in Big Bad Mama and he’s going to bad movie heaven.
(I was going to mention some other movies of note but I realized that there’s just so many.)
In addition to Miller, we also just lost another B-movie great: Louisa Moritz.
A quick check shows they appeared in at least one movie together: Cannonball! with a fine set of other such actors. (Not to be confused with Cannonball Run.)
Sadly, the articles on her death focus more on the Cosby thing than her career.
‘**est known for his role as Murray Futterman in the 1984 classic horror film “Gremlins”…’?
No, he’s best known for A Bucket Of Blood, in which he played ‘Walter Paisley’ – a character name he would use in other films.
I’m sad to hear he died. I always looked for him when watching a film he’s in. I pointed him out to Mrs. L.A. a few weeks (or so) ago when he was on an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and we saw him fairly recently in Gremlins.
But to me, he’ll always be Walter Paisley.
In a book concerning horror movie character actors, the author called him “the archetypal smart ass.” (A role he played very well!)
I think his best role was as the bookstore owner in “The Howling” (1981).
He is telling a customer about all the occult items for sale in his shop.
The customer then asks “you believe in all this”?
Dick Miller’s reply:
“What am I, an idiot? I’m makin’ a buck here.
You want books, I got books. I got chicken blood, I got dog embryos, I got black candles, I got wolf-bane.
Look at this: Silver bullets. Some joker ordered them. Thirty-ought-six. Never picked 'em up.
I take Bank AmeriCard, American Express, Visa. You gonna buy that or what?”
Yes, that was the typical Dick Miller role.
Granted, he was no Laurence Olivier, but whenever he showed up in a movie, you knew it was going to be fun.
RIP Dick Miller
There’s a lot of great references from his career. Anything else?
“Phased plasma rifle in the 40 Watt range.”
“Hey, just what you see pal.”
‘Be a nose!’
‘Didn’t you see me wave my zen stick?’
He was a semi-regular on the old Flash series, playing a cop. Also did a couple of ST episodes. And, of course Evil Toons.
Apparently there’s a 2014 documentary about him:
Maybe it will get some airplay, now.
Dick Miller was in yet another Roger Corman movie - “the Terror” (1963), which also starred Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson.
I found it unusual that he was billed as Richard Miller in this film. It takes place in France in the early 1800’s. No doubt, since Dick Miller was in this “historical drama”, he wanted to use a more sophisticated stage name.
It has been a long time since I had seen this film and I can’t remember any exact quotes, but it is quite unusual to hear Mr. Miller deliver lines such as “the Baron would forbiddeth your taking such action”, with his thick Brooklyn accent!
And yet his accent does not destroy this movie, and if it weren’t for Dick Miller, I wouldn’t have remembered this movie at all.
My take-away from your first IMDB link is that there were 13 episodes of a Joe Namath show in 1969:eek:
It seems there was another Dick Miller / Louisa Moritz cinematic pairing - 1975’s Death Race 2000
Whenever I think of him Little Shop of Horrors – the original non-musical version – is the first film I think of.
Yeah, you gotta scroll down to the uncredited folk to find Miller.* Lots of similarities and differences between the two: 2 Caradines vs. 1. Both have Mary Woronov. One has a cameo by John Landis, the other has Martin Scorsese. Etc.
And of course stupid plots about cross country car races.
- Similarly Sylvester Stallone is in both, uncredited in 1.