Remembering stage, film, and television actor Brad Davis (November 6, 1949 – September 8, 1991), on his birthday. My favourite of his film performances are:
Brad Davis as “Billy Hayes” in Alan Parker’s Turkish-American prison thriller film drama, ‘Midnight Express - (1978), from an adapted screenplay by Oliver Stone based on Billy Hayes's 1977 memoir of the same name.
‘Midnight Express’ also features Irene Miracle as “Susan”; Bo Hopkins as "Tex"; Randy Quaid as “Jimmy Booth”; Paolo Bonacelli as “Rifki”; and John Hurt as “Max”.
Brad Davis as “Jackson Scholz”, an American Olympic runner, in Hugh Hudson’s British historical sports film drama, ‘Chariots of Fire’ - (1981). Colin Welland wrote the screenplay based on the 1924 Olympics, with a story in which actor Ian Charleson plays “Eric Liddell”, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and in which Ben Cross plays “Harold Abrahams”, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.
‘Chariots of Fire’ also features Ian Holm as “Sam Mussabini”, Abrahams' running coach; John Gielgud as Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University; Cheryl Campbell as “Jennie Liddell”, Eric's devout sister; Alice Krige as “Sybil Gordon”, a D'Oyly Carte soprano and Abrahams' fiancée; and Patrick Magee as “Lord Cadogan”, chairman of the British Olympics Committee. Also, a very young Kenneth Branagh, who worked as a set gofer, appears as an extra in the Cambridge Society Day sequence.
Brad Davis in the titular role as “Querelle” in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s West German-French English-language arthouse film, ‘Querelle’ (1982), also starring Franco Nero as “Lieutenant Seblon”; and Jeanne Moreau as “Lysiane”.
‘Querelle’ was adapted from French author Jean Genet's 1947 novel ‘Querelle de Brest’. It was Fassbinder's last film, released shortly after his death at the age of 37.
Davis was bisexual and had HIV (diagnosed in 1985). He kept it a secret until shortly before he died because he would not be hired to work if it was found out he was HIV+ (aka the gay disease, as they called it at the time). He committed assisted suicide by a drug overdose.