(13 July 1941 - 11 October 2019)
The American actor Robert Forster, who has died aged 78 from brain cancer, had an up-and-down career with highlights, bad times and missed opportunities. He had plans to become a lawyer, having studied psychology at university, but he was sidetracked into being an actor, although while looking for theatre work he was also teaching to make some money. He appeared in his local East Rochester theatre in West Side Story and subsequently reached Broadway in 1965 which led to a contract with 20th Century Fox. His first film was John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye, with Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando. Television followed before Robert Mulligan’s The Stalking Moon with Gregory Peck, Justine with Anouk Aimee and Dirk Bogarde, and Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool in which Forster was the star. Pieces of Dreams, Cover Me Babe and Journey Through Rosebud were less interesting projects until he played the title character of the private eye in the TV series of Banyon. He was in Richard Fleischer’s The Don Is Dead with Anthony Quinn and then a run of routine fare: Stunts, Avalanche, Disney’s The Black Hole, Alligator, Heartbreak High, Vigilante, Walking the Edge and The Delta Force with Chuck Norris. Forster produced, directed and starred in Hollywood Harry, his one and only time as a director. More routine films and TV shows followed until Quentin Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown (1997) in which Forster played a good guy after having played many bad’uns. It was probably his best film. After that he did a TV move of Rear Window and the Gus Van Sant remake of Psycho (as a doctor). The rest of Forster’s career included David Lynch’s TV movie of Mulholland Dr., Me, Myself and Irene with Jim Carrey, a Charlie’s Angels sequel, Firewall with Harrison Ford, Lucky Number Slevin with Josh Hartnett, The Descendants with George Clooney, and a whole slew of television including the 2017 sequel to Twin Peaks. Two of Robert Forster’s last films were El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) and What They Had (2018), in the latter playing the husband of a woman (Blythe Danner) suffering from Alzheimer's - for which he received some of the best reviews of his career. Forster was married twice and is father to three daughters, Elizabeth, Kate and Maeghen from his first marriage. He also has a son, Robert, from a previous relationship.
MICHAEL DARVELL
