Some actors stake their claim in the movie industry by doing ritzy-big time-huge pay day projects to get their names splashed all over everything. They become a product, a commodity for Hollywood bigwigs to manipulate in order to make oodles of dough. In exchange, the actors themselves become "stars" whose celebrity outshines their talent in exchange for diva studio deals and infinite ego massaging power and fame. We Mutants don't hold anything against this kind of actor/celebrity entity. They just bore us. Here at the MRFH, we prefer to respect and admire those actors who will, with or without huge parts or huge pay checks, consciously and consistently hand in interesting, diverse and compelling performances. Occasionally these actors hit the big time (Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn) but most often, they build solid careers in anonymity and feed their families making bunches of movies a year without ever doing whirl-wind press junkets or writing articles about themselves for Premiere magazine. This page is our attempt to celebrate those film actors who don't have above the title marquee status but who deserve your attention and have paid their dues to earn your respect. You may not know their names but chances are good that you'll recognize their faces because they're you know, those guys!

J.T. Walsh 1943 - 1998

Total on-screen appearances (per the IMDb): 73 (65 movies/8 TV appearances)

You've most likely seen him in:

• Good Morning Vietnam
• A Few Good Men
• Breakdown
• The Negotiator

Official Web Site: none - none but there are several fan and memorial pages

J.T. Walsh really is the prototypical You Know, That Guy. He's probably most famous for getting this close to becoming famous since he's had some rather substantial roles in a handful of well received films (The Negotiator, Pleasantville, A Few Good Men). However, he's never been the lead actor in any of his projects. What is far more noteworthy than these few high profile roles is the fact that from 1990 until his death from a heart attack in 1998, J.T. Walsh appeared in fifty movies. That's more than 6 films a year which is, ask anybody who works in film, a HUGE amount of gigs to work in any given year much less eight years in a row. What J.T. Walsh didn't have in name recognition he made up for by showing up in small roles in tons of movies. This, to us at least, is the definition of dedication, endurance and proves beyond a doubt that he loved his job and did it well.

J.T. Walsh made a name for himself playing men who were most often morally bankrupt and/or mentally unstable, but those who knew him, even casually, say he was actually one of the most warm hearted and intelligent people they knew (http://www.sebar.com/jtwalsh_dir/realjt.html). So not only did J.T. Walsh get a lot of really great bad guy parts, he also, quietly and with very little fan fare, did some rather miraculous acting in them as well. When he died in 1998 it wasn't front page news, but 2 of the last films he'd worked on (Outside Ozona and The Negotiator) were dedicated in his memory and Jack Nicholson, who had worked with Walsh on A Few Good Men and Hoffa, dedicated the Oscar he won in 1998 to Walsh saying, among other things, "[He's] not here any more, but [he's] in my heart." (http://www.oregonlive.com/ent/movies/mar98/MV980324_ap_nicholson.html).

For Jack Nicholson, that's as good as a reverently felt compliment gets. For those of us who knew and loved J.T. Walsh's work, it was a public acknowledgment of one remarkable man's vastly under appreciated film career.

If you want more of J.T. Walsh rent:

• Slingblade
• The Grifters
• Crazy People
• Pleasantville