Dick Miller 1928-2019

I generally don't write about famous people who have recently died. In fact the only time I've done it in the past was when I found myself surprisingly affected by Leonard Nimoy's passing in 2014. No matter how rich and famous they are, one thing we will always have in common with celebrities is that they are human--and therefore mortal. Just like us they grow old and will eventually die. The older I get the more I hear the news of famous people I've admired over the years passing away.  Sometimes this news is more surprising and hits harder than other times. This morning I heard the news that Dick Miller died on January 30 at the age of 90. Dick Miller certainly wasn't as big of a name as Leonard Nimoy or David Bowie (two of the celebrity deaths of the past few years that have impacted me the most), but the news hit me hard nonetheless. Despite the fact that there is plenty of media coverage of most celebrity deaths I still feel it's worth writing about Dick Miller. As a result of the kind of career he had there isn't as much out there about his passing as there would be with a bigger name star. You kind of have to look for it. The only reason I even heard the news myself is because I saw a post that a friend wrote on Facebook about the death of someone else. In the comments somebody mentioned the fact that Dick Miller had also passed away. I was surprised to hear the news and went straight to Google to find out more. As an indication of how heavily the news of his death was (or more accurately WASN'T) reported, I didn't see any mention of it on Yahoo!'s home page when I signed out of my email a little earlier in the morning. Here's the top 10 list of "Trending Now" items from that page. Note that among the usual collection of celebrity names the number 10 item is the search term "Cleaning Bathroom Tile". At that moment more people were searching about how to clean bathroom tile than were interested in Dick Miller's passing. Welcome to the world of being a character actor.

Dick Miller probably wasn't what most people would consider to be a household name in the world of entertainment. To me that's all the more reason for me to be writing about his passing. He had a very long and very successful career as a character actor and, even if you don't recognize his name (or even his face), you have probably seen his work in a number of movies and TV shows. I don't know when I first saw Mr. Miller, but it was most likely when I was a kid watching monster movies on the WLVI Channel 56 (Boston) show Creature Double Feature on Saturday afternoons in the 1970s and 80s. While he was never a big name or a big star I definitely would recognize him when he'd pop up on the screen by the time I was a teenager. I probably didn't know exactly WHO he was yet, but I did know him. At some point (even though this was in the days before the Internet and IMDb) I did learn who he was and I became a fan for life.

The first time I saw Dick Miller may very well have been on TV in Roger Corman's "It Conquered the World" (1956)

Character actors are pretty much by definition NOT going to be big stars. You can't really be a versatile character actor if you're particularly well-known for your work. Because of this many of the best character actors generally don't become well-known, but they can become very popular among people who love movies and appreciate the work they do in so many different roles. This is especially true when a character actor does the majority of his/her work in a specific genre (comedy, film noir., sports movies...). Fans of that genre will embrace someone who appears in many of their favorite movies and TV shows. Dick Miller appeared in many different kinds of films, but was mainly associated with the horror/sci-fi genre. And that's probably why I have/had such an appreciation for his work. The roles he played were small, but they always seemed to be very memorable. And he appeared in a lot of my favorites over the years.

Mr. Miller also had the good fortune to be associated with a number of great directors who would use him frequently in their films. At the beginning of his career he was lucky enough to be a part of Roger Corman's stable of actors that he would use in all of his quickly-made, low-budget "B" movies in the mid- to late-1950s. For someone so well known for NOT being a star it's interesting to note that early in his career Dick Miller WAS the star of Corman's cult classic "A Bucket of Blood" (1959). His work in that film, and his association with Roger Corman had a lot to do with him becoming a regular in the films of fellow Corman "graduate" Joe Dante (who made a point of casting him in all of his movies). He also appeared in films by James Cameron, Martin Scorsese and many others. I think it's a testament to Dick Miller's greatness that a lot of people (famous and otherwise) have taken to Twitter to note his passing. Here's just a few:

There's enough love out there for Dick Miller that I don't feel I really need to add any more. He appeared in so many roles over the years that it's not worth chronicling his entire career (a look at his IMDb page will fill in all those details). So I think I'll finish this piece by just listing just a few of my favorite Dick Miller roles--the ones that really mean the most to me personally. Like any good character actor, in most of these roles Dick Miller only appeared in one (or maybe two) scenes. But some combination of his presence and the fact that these films are among my favorites causes me to associate him with them nearly as much as the stars and directors do.

Gremlins (1984). While I'm listing this as one of my favorites, it's probably my "least favorite" of those favorites. But nevertheless the part of Murray Futterman in Joe Dante's "Gremlins" (and 1990's Gremlins 2: The New Batch) remains one of his most well-known roles.

After Hours (1985). "After Hours" is one of Martin Scorsese's lesser-known films, but ever since I first saw it on cable in late 1985 or early 1986 it has remained one of my favorites of his works (probably second only to "Taxi Driver" truth be told). It's very funny, quirky and rather dark, and Dick Miller fits perfectly into the late-night world of the film. While his role is simply listed as "Waiter" I've always thought of him as the owner of the diner rather than simply a waiter. Small quibble sure, but a good example of how "unimportant" a character actor can seem that they don't even need to have an actual name assigned to them, and the role can be called simply "Waiter".

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). I'll admit that this was an even smaller role than usual for Dick Miller, but "Twilight Zone: The Movie" was a very important film from my early teen years, so his small role as Walter Paisley in the "It's a Good Life" segment ranks right up there. Walter Paisley was the name of the character Miller played when he starred in "A Bucket of Blood" and was a recurring name that he's been given in many roles for the rest of his career. It's an acknowledgement of what he meant to so many filmmakers that they'd give a subtle nod to him that most people wouldn't even notice in the days before IMDb (myself included). In this case this Walter Paisley is a textbook Dick Miller role. This character could have very easily been the same one who was found in the diner in "After Hours" above, or in any of the other roles I'm listing here.

 The Terminator (1984). Simply having a small role in such a great movie and being associated with it has to be a good thing. But Dick Miller really steals his scene with Arnold Schwarzenegger in James Cameron's classic film when he can't offer the Terminator a "phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range". He responds with "Hey, just what you see, Pal." Again, it's another oddly named character. He actually has no name, but is simply listed as "Pawn Shop Clerk". While again I see him more as the owner of the store rather than simply a clerk (like the issue with the "Waiter" role in "After Hours"), the biggest problem I have with it is that it's clearly a gun store rather than a pawn shop. Maybe it was a pawn shop in the original screenplay or something like that? Whatever, it's another small quibble with a great role--and a great death scene too when Arnold loads up the shotgun and quips "Wrong." after Dick Miller tells him "You can't do that."

The 'Burbs (1989). These films have been listed more or less in order of my favorites (least to most). And "The 'Burbs" does indeed rank pretty high among my all-time favorite films. There are too many "favorite" moments to mention (though I have written about the film before back in 2010, if you'd care to read more about it). But the scene where Dick Miller and Robert Picardo show up is quite hilarious. They are simply billed as being "Garbagemen", though Dick is referred to as Vic by Picardo a couple times in the scene. Most of the film centers around a small group of core characters, so Miller and Picardo are very much outsiders. Dick Miller's best line comes when the tensions rise and Bruce Dern tells him "Who's picks up this mess? Why, you're going to pick up the mess because YOU are a garbageman." He responds with "I pick up garbage in cans, not from the street!" It's a great scene in a great (IMO) film!

Of course my list here is just the tip of the iceberg of a long and fruitful career. I could go on writing about his small roles in movies and on television for hours. But the point is that he was a great character actor who did a lot of great work and will be missed. Here's a trailer for the documentary about Dick Miller from 2014, "That Guy Dick Miller" (which I still haven't seen myself):

And here's one more tweet that I think is the best way to finish up this little tribute to Dick Miller. While he only had a small role in Scorsese's "After Hours", co-star Rosanna Arquette remembered him with this touching tweet referencing a specific scene:

The Generation That Time Forgot

Okay, so when I made my mid-year resolution (as it were) last year to write more on Monster Dad I had a brilliant idea. I knew that even if I could get back into the swing of writing again it was unlikely that I'd be able to generate enough content to satisfy the four-to-five-posts-per-month target that I kinda-sorta set for myself. The problem? I generally only write detailed, long-winded posts that tell a complete story and which tend to take a long time to think out, research and (especially) write. I've noticed that many other blogs tend to be more in line with the current short-attention-span world we're currently living in. Everything today has to be immediate, quick, to-the-point and bite-sized. Blurbs and Tweets are where it's at. My brilliant idea was to expand my horizon (and blog post output) by joining in on the modern world. I've seen other bloggers post a photo with a caption (or sometimes just a photo, without so much as a caption to go along with it) or similar short posts that are insanely quick to generate and post, and at the same time very digestible for an audience looking for quick and instant gratification before moving on to the next thing. I decided that I would start to share things like this on Monster Dad. Any time I saw something that struck my fancy and seemed to fit into the admittedly wide subject area of Monster Dad I would simply create a short post and share it here. This has always been the kind of thing I've done on Facebook (there IS a Share button right below every post on Facebook!), but it always seemed like the opposite of what I wanted to do here--namely to generate new and original content that was actually mine. But content is content, right? I figured that I could still write my usual one, two or three long posts per month and at the same time boost my numbers by adding  a bunch of quick and easy posts. It seemed like a good way to be more relevant and even potentially improve my standing in search engine results and such. But a funny thing happened on my way to becoming a "blurb poster"--I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. For whatever reason I just kept generating my own content, even if it was at a snail's pace. I'm happy to say that I'm still committed to writing around eight months after making that commitment, but also kind of disappointed by my total output. So today I'm finally going to publish my first "blurb post"! Ironically enough, since I've also decided to explain in detail why I'm posting something very short and easy-to-digest, this will still end up being a standard, long-winded Monster Dad post by the time it's done. How quaint!

The Huffington Post recently put up the story Generation Xers Have The Most Gen X Response to Being Left Off The List. Interestingly enough this piece is actually based on a Twitter post by Bill Evenson, and most of the body of the story is made up of Tweets and memes responding to that post. Sounds like this is another example of generating content by sharing something someone else did and making it your own. [Confession: I am NOT currently on Twitter. I signed up for it about a decade ago and then realized that it simply wasn't for me. I know that at some point I'm going to have to join in on the fun, but now it's complicated because of having a closed account and all.]

Anyway, the story is about a graphic by CBS meant to define all of the generations from "The Silent Generation" to "Post-Millennials" by birth year. The graphic was supposed to illustrate a story about crises being experienced by the various generations. But that little graphic ended up being a story unto itself thanks to being noticed and pointed out by Mr. Evenson. As can be seen above, CBS simply skipped from Baby Boomers to Millennials with no mention of the people born between 1965 and 1980--a generation known as "Generation X". As a member of that generation (born in 1969) I was curious about why CBS decided to leave us out. It certainly seems like an oversight. I mean, there were definitely people born between 1965 and 1980. I don't think anyone would refute that fact. And it doesn't seem like there's any real reason to dis, dismiss or deny the existence of Gen Xers. Or am I missing something?

I remember when they first started to refer to my generation as Generation X. It was the first new "generation designation" since the Baby Boomers. It seemed like a pretty cool designation too. I mean, it had "X" in it! It was a time of grunge rock, Nintendo and the early days of the Internet as a regular thing that regular people used. It was a pretty cool feeling knowing that I was a member of this newly-named generation. But now we're the old folks. We're the ones seeing the Millennials taking over the world and complaining about them. Perhaps it was a Millennial who created the graphic that started all of this. Perhaps he/she did it on purpose to belittle Generation X via omission. Or perhaps he/she was just being a "lazy Millennial" and was more concerned with where they were going to hang with their friends after work--or wondering why they even HAVE to work in the first place--to check their graphic before submitting it. Who knows?

Whatever the case, we now have this story to ponder, muse about, question, make fun of, laugh at, post Tweets and memes about and share ad nauseam on social media. I wasn't actually planning on writing about this story myself (it's already written about in HuffPost after all). My intention was simply to share the story and link here, let everyone who sees this have access to the original story and count one more post as being "written". But when you get right down to it, I'm still Monster Dad and I still have my own style of writing. Is it a style likely to get me legions of loyal readers clamoring for more and more posts? Probably not. But it IS me, and I AM a Gen Xer.