Warren Mercer Oates (July 5, 1928 – April 3, 1982) was a prolific American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by
Sam PeckinpahDavid Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved his status following the release of his 1969 Western epic The Wild Bunch...
including
The Wild BunchThe Wild Bunch directed by Sam Peckinpah, is a Western film about an aging outlaw gang at the Texas-Mexico border trying to exist in the modern world of supposedly 1913...
(1969) and
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is an action-adventure film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
(1974). He starred in numerous films during the early 1970s which have since achieved cult status including
The Hired HandThe Hired Hand is a 1971 western film directed by Peter Fonda, with a screenplay by Alan Sharp. The film stars Fonda, Warren Oates, and Verna Bloom. The cinematography was by Vilmos Zsigmond, and Bruce Langhorne provided the moody film score. The story is about a man who returns to his abandoned...
(1971),
Two-Lane BlacktopTwo-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
(1971) and
Race with the DevilRace with the Devil is a 1975 occult thriller and action film starring Peter Fonda , Warren Oates , Loretta Swit and Lara Parker . This was the second of three films Fonda and Oates would star together, including 92 in the Shade and The Hired Hand...
(1975). Oates also portrayed Sergeant Hulka in the box office hit
StripesStripes is a 1981 American comedy film starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates, P. J. Soles, and John Candy. The director was Ivan Reitman. Stripes also featured several noted actors in their first significant movie roles, including John Larroquette, Sean Young, John Diehl and Judge...
(1981).
Early life
Oates was born and raised in Depoy,
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
(near
GreenvilleGreenville is a city in and the county seat of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, United States. It is named for Revolutionary War General Nathan Greene...
in
Muhlenberg CountyMuhlenberg County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 31,839. The county is named for Peter Muhlenberg. Its county seat is Greenville....
), the son of Sarah Alice (
néeA married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage, and in speaking of the many cultures where the practice is traditional for women, the maiden name is the family name that the married name replaces....
Mercer) and Bayless E. Oates, who owned a general store. He attended high school in
LouisvilleLouisville is Kentucky's largest city and county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's estimated population as of 2008 was 713,877 , with a population of 1,244,696 in the Louisville...
, and enlisted in the Marines in the 1950s. He began his acting career in New York City starring in a live production of the television series
Studio OneStudio One is a long-running American dramatic radio-television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...
in 1957.
Career
The actor migrated to Los Angeles where he began to carve out a niche playing guest roles in
westernThe Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska The Western...
television programs of the period including
Wagon TrainWagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957-1962 and then on ABC from 1962-1965...
,
Tombstone TerritoryTombstone Territory is an American western television series starring Pat Conway and Richard Eastham. The series' first two seasons aired on ABC from 1957 to 1959...
,
RawhideRawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
,
Wanted: Dead or Alive,
Have Gun-Will Travel,
The Big ValleyThe Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965 to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman. The producer was Levy-Gardner-Laven. Associate producer Lou Morheim...
and
GunsmokeGunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
. Oates first met Peckinpah when he played a variety of guest roles on
The RiflemanThe Rifleman is an American Western television program that ran on ABC, from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963, a production of Four Star Television.-History:...
(1958-1963), the popular television series created by the director. He also played a supporting role in Peckinpah's short-lived TV series
The WesternerThe Westerner is a 1960 Four Star Television Western series on NBC created by Sam Peckinpah. The series stars Brian Keith as Dave Blassingame and features John Dehner as semi-regular Burgundy Smith...
in 1960. The collaboration continued as he worked on Peckinpah's early films
Ride the High CountryRide the High Country is a noted 1962 western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley, Ron Starr and Edgar Buchanan. It was written by N.B. Stone Jr., Robert Creighton Williams and Sam Peckinpah and directed by Peckinpah, with a score written by George Bassman...
(
1962The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Dr. No launches the James Bond film series, the second longest-running motion picture franchise of all time , running more than 40 years.-Top grossing films :...
) and
Major DundeeMajor Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches....
(
1965The year 1965 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue
source: http://www.boxofficereport.com/database/1965.shtml- Awards :Academy Awards:*Boeing Boeing*Brainstorm...
).
In 1961, he guest starred in the episode "Artie Moon" in
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
's
The Lawless YearsThe Lawless Years is the first television crime drama set during the Roaring 20s, having predated ABC's far more successful The Untouchables with Robert Stack by six months. The 47-episode half-hour series aired nonconsecutively on NBC from April 16 to August 27, 1959, from October 1, 1959, to...
crime drama about the 1920s. In 1962, he appeared as "Ves Painter" in the short-lived
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
series
Stoney BurkeStoney Burke is a California street performer and actor.Burke performs political comedy on college campuses, most notably at the University of California, Berkeley near Sather Gate. Burke routinely engages crowds throughout the day using conservative Republican perspectives as his primary satire...
, co-starring
Jack LordJohn Joseph Patrick Ryan , best known by his stage name Jack Lord, was an American television, film, and Broadway actor. He was best known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett in the American television program Hawaii Five-O from 1968 to 1980...
, a program about
rodeoRodeo is a sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States, western...
contestants. Oates also portrayed a number of memorable characters in guest roles on the enduringly popular television series
The Twilight ZoneThe Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964 and remains syndicated to this day. The show consisted of unrelated vignettes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events, usually...
("
The Purple Testament"The Purple Testament" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It's "the story of a man who can forecast death."-Opening narration:-Synopsis:...
" 1960, "
The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms"The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" is an episode of the CBS American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Serling.-Opening narration:-Summary:...
" 1963),
The Outer LimitsThe Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. Similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone with more science fiction than fantasy stories, The Outer Limits is an anthology of discrete story episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end.The series was...
("The Mutant" 1964),
Lost in SpaceLost in Space is a science fiction television program created and produced by Irwin Allen, produced by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between 1965 and March 6, 1968. The first season was shot with black and white film, the...
("Welcome Stranger" 1965) and
LancerLancer is a 1968-1970 Western television series on CBS, which starred Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder as a father with two half-brother sons, an arrangement similar to the more successful Bonanza on NBC....
("The Man Without a Gun" 1969, "The Buscaderos" 1970).
In addition to Peckinpah, Oates worked with several major film directors of his era including
Leslie StevensLeslie A. Stevens III was the creator of the cult TV series The Outer Limits and director of the cult horror film Incubus , starring William Shatner....
in the 1960 film
Private PropertyPrivate property is the tangible and intangible things owned by individuals or firms over which their owners have exclusive and absolute legal rights, and can only be transferred with the owner's consent. Private property can take the form of real estate, homes, factories, automobiles, capital,...
, his first starring role;
Norman JewisonNorman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre.-Early life:...
in
In the Heat of the Night (
1967The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:*December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television....
);
Joseph L. MankiewiczJoseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.-Early life:Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany. He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz , and a brother, Herman J...
in
There Was a Crooked Man...There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western comedy starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The film follows Paris Pitman , a charismatic criminal who ends up in jail, and his attempts to escape the prison of warden Lopeman...
(1970);
John MiliusJohn Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960's, but was rejected due...
in
DillingerDillinger is a 1973 gangster film which shows evidence of being strongly influenced by the films of Sam Peckinpah, as well as borrowing cinematically from the Warren Beatty vehicle, Bonnie and Clyde....
(
1973The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
);
Terrence MalickTerrence "Terry" Malick is an American filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. In a career spanning decades, Malick has directed one short film and four feature-length films....
in
BadlandsBadlands is a 1973 film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured...
(1973);
Philip KaufmanPhilip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. Although not noted for directing a large number of films, the films he has worked on have been done with recognizable intelligence and independence...
in
The White DawnThe White Dawn is a Canadian film, released in 1974, which portrays the conflict between aboriginal peoples' traditional way of life and Europeans' eagerness to take advantage of them. The film employs authentic Inuit dialect, which adds to the overall realism of the film...
(1974);
William FriedkinWilliam Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The Exorcist and The French Connection in the early 1970s...
in
The Brink's JobThe Brink's Job is a 1978 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Goorwitz, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery in Boston, where almost 3 million dollars was stolen....
(1978); and
Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. In a career of over four decades, Spielberg's films have touched on many themes and genres. Spielberg's early sci-fi and adventure films, sometimes centering on children, were seen as an archetype of modern...
in
19411941 is a period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by friends Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It starred John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and premiered in December 1979...
(1979).
He appeared in the
Sherman BrothersThe Sherman Brothers are an Academy Award-winning American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....
musical version of
Tom Sawyer as "Muff Potter" the town drunk. He also starred in
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960),
Return of the SevenReturn of the Seven , is the first sequel to the 1960 western, The Magnificent Seven. Made in 1966, Yul Brynner is the sole returning cast member from the first film, portraying Chris Adams....
(1966),
The ShootingThe Shooting is a 1966 western film directed by Monte Hellman, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman . It stars Warren Oates, Millie Perkins, Will Hutchins, and Jack Nicholson, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her...
(filmed in 1965, released in 1968),
The Thief Who Came to DinnerThe Thief Who Came to Dinner is a 1973 comedy film directed by Bud Yorkin and based on the novel by Terrence Lore Smith.-Plot summary:Webster McGee is a computer programmer who abruptly quits his job and adopts a life of crime as a jewel thief in Houston, Texas...
(1973),
CockfighterCockfighter is a 1974 film by director Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton and Ed Begley, Jr. in his film debut. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford...
(1974) and
China 9, Liberty 37China 9, Liberty 37 is an Italian-Spanish 1978 western film directed by Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Jenny Agutter, and Fabio Testi. The film was shot in locations in Spain and Italy by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno. Pino Donaggio composed the musical score...
(1978). Oates co-starred three times with friend
Peter FondaPeter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, the brother of Jane Fonda, and the father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
in
The Hired HandThe Hired Hand is a 1971 western film directed by Peter Fonda, with a screenplay by Alan Sharp. The film stars Fonda, Warren Oates, and Verna Bloom. The cinematography was by Vilmos Zsigmond, and Bruce Langhorne provided the moody film score. The story is about a man who returns to his abandoned...
(1971),
Race with the DevilRace with the Devil is a 1975 occult thriller and action film starring Peter Fonda , Warren Oates , Loretta Swit and Lara Parker . This was the second of three films Fonda and Oates would star together, including 92 in the Shade and The Hired Hand...
(1975) and
92 in the Shade (1975).
His partnership with Peckinpah resulted in two of his most famous film roles. In the
1969The year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue
source: http://www.boxofficereport.com/database/1969.shtml- Awards :Academy Awards:*Anne of the Thousand Days...
WesternThe Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska The Western...
classic
The Wild BunchThe Wild Bunch directed by Sam Peckinpah, is a Western film about an aging outlaw gang at the Texas-Mexico border trying to exist in the modern world of supposedly 1913...
, he portrayed Lyle Gorch, a long-time outlaw who chooses to die with his friends during the film's violent conclusion. According to his wife at the time, Teddy, Oates had the choice of starring in
Support Your Local Sheriff, to be filmed in Los Angeles, or
The Wild Bunch in Mexico. "He had done
Return of the Seven in Mexico; he got
hepatitisHepatitis implies injury to the liver characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from ancient Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...
, plus the
revengeDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the feces. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal....
. But off he went again with Sam (Peckinpah). He loved going on location. He loved the adventure of it. He had great admiration for Sam. Sam Peckinpah and
Monte HellmanMonte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
were the two directors Warren would work with anytime anywhere." In
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is an action-adventure film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
, the dark 1974 action/tragedy also filmed in Mexico, Oates played the lead role of Bennie, a hard-drinking down-on-his-luck musician hoping to make a final score. The character was reportedly based on Peckinpah himself. For authenticity, Oates wore the director's sunglasses while filming scenes of the production.
Although the Peckinpah film roles are his best-known, his most critically acclaimed role is GTO in
Monte HellmanMonte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
's 1971 cult classic
Two-Lane BlacktopTwo-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
. The film, although a failure at the box-office, is studied in film schools as a treasure of the '70's, in large part due to Oates' heartbreaking portrayal of GTO.
A year before his death, Oates co-starred with
Bill MurrayWilliam James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live, and went on to star in films including Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.-Early years:Murray, the fifth...
in the 1981 military comedy
StripesStripes is a 1981 American comedy film starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates, P. J. Soles, and John Candy. The director was Ivan Reitman. Stripes also featured several noted actors in their first significant movie roles, including John Larroquette, Sean Young, John Diehl and Judge...
. In the role of drill sergeant Sergeant Hulka, Oates skillfully played the straight man to Murray's comedic character. The film was a huge financial success, earning $85 million at the box office.
Death
Oates died of a sudden
heart attackMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
in
Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
on April 3, 1982. He had co-starred in the TV mini-series
The Blue and the GrayThe Blue and the Gray is a television miniseries that first aired on CBS in three installments on November 14, November 16, and November 17, 1982. Set during the American Civil War, the series starred John Hammond, Stacy Keach, Lloyd Bridges, and Gregory Peck as President Abraham Lincoln...
, which aired in November 1982. His last two films,
Blue ThunderBlue Thunder is a 1983 feature film that features a high-tech helicopter of the same name. The movie was directed by John Badham and stars Roy Scheider...
and
Tough Enough (both released in
1983-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York-Top grossing films :source: http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1983&p=.htm- Awards :Academy Awards:...
), were posthumously dedicated to him. Oates was 53 years old.
Legacy
Today, the actor has a dedicated
cult followingA cult following is used to refer to a small or large group of fans that are either somewhat or highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture.-Cult media:...
due to his memorable performances in not only Peckinpah's films, but
Monte Hellman'sMonte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
independent works, his films with Peter Fonda and a number of B-movies from the 1970s. His occasionally crude facade, likeable persona and uncommon presence are admired by such filmmakers as
Quentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s he was an independent filmmaker whose films used nonlinear storylines and aestheticization of violence...
and
Richard LinklaterRichard Stuart Linklater is an Academy Award-nominated American film director and screenwriter.-Biography:Linklater was born in Houston, Texas. He studied at Sam Houston State University and left midway through his stint in college to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico...
. During a recent screening of Hellman's
Two-Lane BlacktopTwo-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
, Linklater introduced the film and announced 16 reasons why viewers should love the
1971The year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music...
movie. His sixth reason, "Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates."
The
documentary filmDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
Warren Oates: Across the Border was produced by
Tom ThurmanTom Thurman is an American filmmaker. Thurman has produced and directed numerous independent documentaries on film, music, and literary figures, including Nick Nolte, Warren Oates, Harry Crews, John Ford, and Sam Peckinpah.-Early Career:Thurman received a bachelor's degree in 1984 from Centre...
in 1993 in tribute to the actor's career.
Warren was cremated and his ashes were scattered in
MontanaMontana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of the state contains numerous mountain ranges; other 'island' ranges are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
.
External links