He was good in the roles I’ve seen as the tough guy, but he had his demons too. Story here.
He was in a great many movies but I remember him most for being the human drug detector on that reality show. Another rehabbing celeb walked in the door of the “house” and he’d be fucking pissed because he KNEW they fell off the wagon AND DIDN’T GIVE HIM ANY! It was uncanny.
I just realized that whenever I’m reading a book with a sergeant in it, I imagine them looking like Sizemore.
He was good in Saving Private Ryan. I haven’t seen much of his other work.
Rest In Peace, Tom Sizemore.
Enjoyed him in his dramatic roles, but he also had a hilarious guest spot in It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. RIP.
One of the things that I had to fight to suspend my disbelief in that movie was the ages of actors. Most were way too old. A sergeant in his mid to late 30s was not impossible in WWII but at that point most were under 30 especially in units like the Rangers that required high physical stamina. My uncle was a First Sergeant by the end of the war and he was 29. Something Hollywood had been doing for a long time. The real person 55 year old John Wayne played in The Longest Day was a Lieutenant Colonel and 27 on D-Day.
Sizemore’s acting in that was excellent but he didn’t look like a guy in a unit that was expected to climb up a cliff on a rope. (Some Rangers did go in the first wave with the 29th. The largest number of Rangers went up the cliff at Pointe du Hoc)
Definitely on point, although when watching the movie their ages didn’t bother me. I just went with it. But yeah, there’s no way a Tom Sizemore physique is able to lead a Ranger unit. I did, however, enjoy the repartee between the characters of Hanks and Sizemore when they were alone, away from the troops.
Your post made me think of my own ages at certain ranks. I was 25 when I made E-5 Sergeant, and 29 at E-7 Gunny. I got out at 32 after 13 years of service because I’d finished my degree and could get a good job in tech in Silicon Valley.
And the heated argument between the characters played by Sizemore and Edward Burns. There’s something I find captivating about his reactions as the argument escalates. What was that line? “You don’t know when to shut up!” and “You can’t shut up, can you?” And he’s almost laughing as a way of releasing rage.
RIP
When I look at photos of WWII, members of that generation usually seem much older than their counterparts today. Maybe this was a result of the war or having lived through the Depression, I don’t know. Either way, life was a lot harder than it is today, and that ages a person. Someone who had to quit school in the eighth grade to go to work and help support the family is going to look (and be) much more mature at 21 than any of the millennials I see in the Toronto Metro.
RIP, Tom. I enjoyed Saving Private Ryan too.
“You don’t know when to shut up, you don’t know how to shut up.”
I first noticed him in “Devil in a Blue Dress” and “True Romance.”
Spielberg drug tested him every day telling him that if he fails once that he is fired and Spielberg will reshoot the entire film if necessary. Very sad to think how awesome he was when forced to be clean.
My dad was a sergeant in WWII, and he didn’t even enlist until he was 31. True, he was an airplane mechanic, not a combat grunt.
I liked Sizemore in Robbery Homicide Division maybe even more than SPR. It was a mostly good police procedural than ran all of 13 episodes. I might have been the sole audience. 
I read somewhere that the average age of a GI in WWII was 26. (In Vietnam, it was 18.) In Up Front, Bill Mauldin said Willie and Joe were in their late 20s or early 30s, “about average age for the Infantry.”
In general, war movies portray the military as a lot older than it is. Even the generals weren’t that old; today’s generals seem to be a hair older than their WWII counterparts were, with most of the WWII era generals born somewhere around 1885 to 1890, making them 50-55 at the beginning of the war. Today’s four-star generals are all in their late 50s/early 60s already. Enlisted men were generally in their early 20s.
Even Band of Brothers, who mostly cast up and coming younger actors, still had actors who were about 3-4 years too old in each position. Dick Winters and Lewis Nixon were both 25-26 (born 1918) on D-Day, yet Damian Lewis was 30, and Ron Livingston was 34 when they portrayed them. Same for the rest of the actors - the youngest were 24 or so, like Tom Hardy.
After reading of his death, we just watched Guilty by Suspicion, in which he has a minor part. I also stumbled across a 2008 indie movie The Last Lullaby, in which he plays the lead. I haven’t seen it all yet, but am enjoying it so far (although the way the kidnappers give themselves away in the early scene stretches credulity). From Lullaby, Sizemore was definitely an actor with an effortless ability to portray a character whose hardbitten manner hides reserves of compassion.
There was a snark about Ted Danson being the world’s oldest paratrooper. And yeah he was about 11 years older then the real Colonel Sink (Dale Dye) in BoB.
And Dale Dye being about 18 years older then Colonel Sink.
My best, really only, memory of Sizemore is that he was doing court ordered pee tests and he was busted using a fake penis with another persons clean urine inside.