Wilford Brimley, a veteran character actor known for his bushy moustache and gruff voice, has died. He was 85.
Born Anthony Wilford Brimley in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1934, he moved to Santa Monica, California at the age of five along with his family. Upon dropping out of school st the age of 14, he found work as a cowboy in Idaho, Nevada and Arizona before enlisting with the Marines, which sent him overseas. Returning, he found more work as a ranch hand, a wrangler and a blacksmith and then, briefly, as a bodyguard for infamous industrialist and filmmaker Howard Hughes.
His entry into performing was via his blacksmithing and working as a farrier, shoeing horses for Western TV and movies, which led to small nonspeaking roles and stunts.
Brimley is best recognised as one of those men who seemed to look old even at a relatively young age, and he made a speciality of playing cantankerous types. He appeared on TV's The Waltons and that got him a breakthrough film role in The China Syndrome, which he followed up playing a pugnacious district attorney in Absence Of Malice. More supporting roles came his way, including The Natural, The Thing and The Firm.
Ron Howard cast him in Cocoon as one of a group of seniors who find themselves revitalized after swimming in a pool containing alien pods and, though he was famously testy on set, the director has praised his ability to improvise. In his later years, he was famously a pitchman for Quaker Oats and spoke out regularly about his dealing with diabetes, especially in a much-referenced and occasionally parodied TV PSA.
He's survived by his wife, Beverly, three sons from his first marriage, James John and William.