He brought terrifying characters to life for decades and made memorable appearances in some genre classics, so we are sad to report that actor Michael Parks has died at the age of 77.
Born Harry Samuel Parks in Corona, California in 1940, he didn't get into acting right away. Parks drifted through different jobs in his teenage years, including fruit picking, ditch digging and truck driving. He began his screen life in 1960 with TV shows such as Zane Grey Theater, The Untouchables and The Real McCoys. But though he scored guest roles on plenty of shows and nabbed the lead in Then Came Bronson, he struggled to find the right outlet for his talents and, vocally rejecting changes to Bronson, saw himself quietly shunned, relegated once more to parts here and here for years until properly seeing his career re-ignite for shows such as The Equalizer, Twin Peaks and Walker Texas Ranger.
On the big screen, he kicked off in 1965 with Bus Riley's Back In Town and largely worked on smaller films and B-Movies. In 1996, Quentin Tarantino, long a fan of Parks' work, hired him to play Ranger Earl McGraw in From Dusk Till Dawn, setting him on a path to become a cult icon once more, working on several of the director's movies, including Kill Bill, Death Proof and Django Unchained. He went on to find other roles, appearing in Argo and Blood Father and found a staunch supporter in Kevin Smith, who wrote Red State and Tusk for him. "Michael was, and will likely forever remain, the best actor I’ve ever known," Smith writes on an Instagram post paying tribute to his collaborator and friend. "He was, hands-down, the most incredible thespian I ever had the pleasure to watch perform."
Parks died on Tuesday and is survived by his wife Oriana and son James.