Michael J. Pollard is dead to me.

That's a good obituary; thanks for posting. Even Miss Dunaway has kind words for Pollard in her memoir.

Lovey-dovey, bonk bonk!

Aww, me too, OP. Great actor.

He would never have had a high-profile career today. Hollywood no longer does offbeat.

RIP.

great final sequences with redneck Dad in Bonnie and Clyde original Hugo Peabody in Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway RIP

He played Mr. Mooney's son in this terrible episode of "The Lucy Show".

He should’ve had a bigger career.

Somewhere in this interview in Beth Howland's bedroom with this horrible reporter, she badmouths Michael J. Pollard. He didn't pay child support and abandoned his daughter. Hopefully he made amends.

He was semi responsible for this. Who knew??

[quote] Mr. Pollard, who enjoyed the company of poets and rock musicians, was credited with inspiring the title of the group Traffic’s 1971 hit “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” a song by bandmates Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi.

Who knew?

I’ll always remember him wiping his snotty nose on the back of his hand in The Russians Are Coming.

Jinx r8

Wait....maybe he used his dirty mechanic rag to wipe his nose....

I grew up watching Scrooged every Christmas season. Herman’s death was so sad to me as a kid. He was a very memorable character actor.

OP, you could have mentioned Family Ties, his most famous role!

Sheesh.

The ghost of Beth Howland is busy this year. First she got TV husband Charles Levin and now real life ex Michael J. Pollard. Charles Kimbrough and Linda Lavin, consider this a warning.

JUMP BACK!

I heard Kip Niven's stocking up on Garlic.

Oh Geez, Grim Reaper, not another fucking one.

He was kind of cute as a young actor on Broadway. Here he plays Hugo to Susan Watson's Kim McAfee in the original production of Bye Bye Birdy. Both were replaced in the movie, Kim by Ann-Margret.

I didn't even realize until now that the entire main cast of Bonnie and Clyde was still alive up until yesterday. Pretty fascinating, for a 52-year old film. Can you imagine the entire cast of Gone With the Wind still being around in 1991?

Only the ones who count, r19.

[quote]He was kind of cute as a young actor on Broadway. Here he plays Hugo to Susan Watson's Kim McAfee in the original production of Bye Bye Birdy. Both were replaced in the movie, Kim by Ann-Margret.

Just on a side note. That costume for Conrad Birdie is the campiest thing I've ever seen. If he's supposed to be a teen idol, he must have been a teen idol straight out of the Rocky Horror Show.

He made some down and dirty schlock in the 1980’s, like American Gothic and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland.

"Here he plays Hugo to Susan Watson's Kim McAfee in the original production of Bye Bye Birdy. Both were replaced in the movie, Kim by Ann-Margret."

Can you imagine him playing opposite ANN MARGRET in the movie version of "Bye Bye Birdie?" No casting director or studio head would allowed THAT to happen. By the way, the character of Hugo was totally revamped in the movie; his role was much larger, and he was made a singing, dancing, teen idol cutie pie as played by Bobby Rydell. Poor Michael J. Pollard never could have pulled THAT off. But if he had been cast in the movie he would have been much more interesting than Rydell.

Bump for original thread.

In an interview with People, Howland said she let Pollard for her own reasons:

Howland, the only child of a strict Boston Catholic family, married Pollard when she was a 19-year-old Broadway dancer in Bye, Bye, Birdie and he was one of the leads. Three years later, as his career began to flourish as C.W. Moss in Bonnie and Clyde, Beth walked out “It was nothing he ever did. It was just that I had no self-esteem,” she remembers. “I had to get a way to find out who I was.” Struggling to make her career work, Beth set about the frustrating task of rearing her daughter.

He paved the way for John C Reilly.

He was also in a memorable episode of "Lost In Space" called "The Magic Mirror." Penny falls through a mirror into a strange, dark world; she encounters a Peter Pan like boy (Pollard) who thinks it's a wonderful life there, never growing old and having fun playing with monsters (there's one that's always chasing them) and spying on the people looking into the mirror from the outside. Dr. Smith falls into the mirror too; he becomes hysterical with fear (he doesn't find getting chased by monsters fun) but somehow accidentally finds a way to escape the mirror. Penny follows suit and tells the boy that in order to leave he only has to do what she does; shooting a rifle in the direction of her reflection in a pool of water. She leaves, but he doesn't follow her out of the mirror because...well, watch the episode. The ending is haunting.

He was great in Bonnie & Clyde. Had no idea about the Traffic connection. I love that song.

I remember him in Roxanne. Very funny.

r28 I still can't believe Roseanne's TV mom won an Oscar for playing Bev in that movie.

" I still can't believe Roseanne's TV mom won an Oscar for playing Bev in that movie."

She played BLANCHE in "that movie." I thought Estelle Parson's Oscar was undeserved. Her performance was pure ham. Blanche Barrow, appalled at how she was portrayed onscreen, said Parsons made her out to be "a screaming horse's ass."

R22 I was just watching Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland a few days before Pollard died. I watched it again with the commentary on and the director basically said Pollard was very similar to the character he played in that movie and was trying to get into the panties of some of the much-younger actresses in the movie. The director seemed to like him though.

R31 I disagree. Parsons' performance was more than just screaming. She was a dynamic character; she undergoes a major change in personality/attitude. She starts out as a respectable, meek, preacher's daughter, but as the story progresses, she becomes more assertive and starts smoking cigarettes and wearing pants. She's also pretty cool-headed toward the end (except when Buck is mortally shot, understandably) and her interrogation scene is just heartbreaking.

She only really acts "like a screaming horse's ass" during the first gun fight in Joplin, MO, as did the real Blanche, which is why I don't understand her complaints. Read her memoir. She describes herself pretty much the way Parsons portrayed her (i.e., wet blanket, dead weight, despised by both Bonnie and Clyde), except in real life Blanche continued to be a screaming horse's ass during all gun fights (she was afraid of guns). Methinks she was embarrassed by how Parsons came across in the film, even though that's how she recorded her own reactions to the events.

[quote]Can you imagine the entire cast of Gone With the Wind still being around in 1991?

Oh THE WIZARD OF OZ, for that matter. Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, Billie Burke, Frank Morgan, Charley Grapewin, and Clara Blandick were all dead by then. Bolger was the last to die in 1987.

Judy lives in our hearts.