Warren Oates was a grizzly character actor who has inspired a devoted cult for a few reasons: genuine talent, a hard drinking lifestyle, collaboration with auteurs like Monte Hellman and Sam Peckinpah, and some odd cult-y movies on his resume (
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,
Two Lane Backdrop,
Cockfighter). He's been given a wonderful biography from Susan Compo - every actor should be so lucky to have a biographer as tenacious as her, you really couldn't wish for a more definitive account.
Oates came from Kentucky, spending the first few years of his life in a small town, the moving to the larger Louisville. Oates always looked like a former soldier and indeed spent two years in the Marines although it was in peacetime. It meant he could attend college where he got the theatre bug. He moved to New York where he succeeded in getting an agent and some work, plus making friends (including a young Steve McQueen), developing a drinking problem and a tendency to womanise.
What really got his career going was moving to Hollywood in the late 1950s. It was the heyday of the TV Western and Oates' rough, beady-eyed look made him perfect to play rustlers, outlaws, etc - once he hit town he was rarely out of work, even if it was often not particularly distinguished. He was lucky enough to find Sam Peckinpah, a director who liked Oates and used him well; his career also got a fillip from the TV series
Stoney Burke and a stage performance of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which I was unaware he'd done) plus the leads in some Monte Hellman Westerns like
The Shooting.
In the early 70s Oates became kind of a star - maybe "character leading man" would be a better description. He played the leads in a number of movies, few of which were hits but all of which had a certain critical cachet today -
The Hired Hand, Two Lane Backdrop, Kid Blue, White Dawn, Alfredo Garcia, 92 in the Shade. His biggest hits were more consciously trashy:
Race with the Devil, Drum. He was greatly admired by the Movie Brat generation and worked with John Milius (
Dillinger), Walter Hill (
The Thief Who Came to Dinner), Spielberg (
1941), Terence Mallick (
Badlands), Dennis Hopper (
Kid Blue).
To many people he was kind of a 70s Bogart - a character actor who developed into a star. Indeed, he played many Bogart like roles -
Dillinger and a TV remake of
The African Queen. But he never had a really popular star making vehicle like Bogart had with
The Maltese Falcon or
High Sierra and drifted back into support roles - though good ones since he was such a strong actor and so castable (
Stripes,
The Border). He died relatively young at 53 but considering how he punished his body with booze, drugs and alcohol, he had a decent innings.
I didn't know a lot about Oates but this fills in all the gaps - constant womanising; a surprising ability to get good looking women (he had an affair with Millie Perkins, which is a pretty good score); theatre scene of the mid west during his college years; the bo ho life of LA in the 60s, living on a boat in Marina del Rey and having drinks with Steve McQueen; the Montana scene of the 70s where you had Oates, Thomas Guane and Dennis Hopper running around sleeping with each other's wives; a surprisingly hippy nature.
Oates does come across as a bit of a wanker at times - a not very good father, lover or husband, irresponsible and clownish. But he was an artist and so much of his art remains and he's lucky to have been the subject of such a good book.
