Matt Clark, Character Actor in a Barnful of Movie Westerns, Dies at 89
He appeared in ‘The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean,’ ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,’ ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales,’ ‘Hearts of the West’ and so many other films in the genre.
Matt Clark, the familiar character actor who like sagebrush found his way into Westerns including Paul Newman’s The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, John Wayne’s The Cowboys and Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales, has died. He was 89.
Below: Matt Clark in The Outlaw Josey Wales
Clark died Sunday in Austin, Texas, his daughter, producer Amiee Clark, told The Hollywood Reporter. He broke his back a few months ago, she said.
Clark also acted alongside Robert Redford in Sydney Pollack’s Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and Brubaker (1980) — in the latter, he portrayed Purcell, the former warden’s clerk, in one of his best known roles — and opposite Eastwood in Don Siegel’s The Beguiled (1971), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Honkytonk Man (1982) (Below).
And he did four films for director Stuart Rosenberg: Pocket Money (1972), The Laughing Policeman (1973), Brubaker and Let’s Get Harry (1986).
As a director himself, Clark helmed the 1988 feature Da (1988), starring Bernard Hughes, Martin Sheen and his onetime acting teacher, William Hickey. The film is about a New York playwright summoned to Ireland to bury his father.
Clark’s work in Westerns also included Will Penny (1967), Monte Walsh (1970), Macho Callahan (1970), The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972), Sam Peckinpaugh’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Howard Zieff’s Hearts of the West (1975), Kid Vengeance (1976), The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014).
Below: with Robert Redford in Brubaker
“I just loved ’em!” Clark said in a 1991 interview. “Just like you always wanted to do as a little kid, you put on chaps and boots and tie on spurs that jingle when you walk.”
Clark was born in Washington on Nov. 25, 1936, and raised in Arlington, Virginia. His father, Frederick, built boats and cabinets, and his mother, Theresa, was a schoolteacher.
He spent two years in the U.S. Army and studied business administration at George Washington University before leaving to pursue acting. In New York, he studied at the HB Studio with Herbert Berghof and Hickey, joined the Living Theatre and understudied for Sheen (who would become a lifelong friend) in the original 1964-66 Broadway production of The Subject Was Roses.
Clark made his big-screen debut in Black Like Me (1964), starring James Whitmore, and played a Southern punk in the Oscar best picture winner In the Heat of the Night (1967), directed by Norman Jewison.
Below: with Burt Reynolds in White Lightning
The dependable Clark also appeared in The Bridge at Remagen (1969), Robert Aldrich’s The Grissom Gang (1971), White Lightning (1973), Emperor of the North (1973), Outlaw Blues (1977), Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978), Some Kind of Hero (1982), Country (1984), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), Return to Oz (1985), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and 42 (2013).
“He was the kind of actor that defined Hollywood filmmaking in its greatest era,” Hacks director Gary Rosen said in a statement, “the utterly unique character player who made every scene he appeared in memorable, often stealing them from stars like Rod Steiger, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne.
“His roles in In the Heat of the Night, Jeremiah Johnson, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Cowboys, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, among many others, helped to elevate those films to classic status. He leaves the stage, but his performances will be remembered forever.”
For television, he played the guy named Walt Bacon who works at Foxworthy Heating & Air on the first season of the ABC sitcom The Jeff Foxworthy Show, recurred on Grace Under Fire and appeared on Ben Casey, Dog and Cat, The Waltons, Magnum, P.I., The Practice, Chicago Hope and in the famed miniseries The Winds of War and Barbarians at the Gate.
“By the time I worked with Matt Clark on the film 42,” director Brian Helgeland said, “he had already been in more than 120 different productions in a career that stretched back to the early 1960s. You’d think there would be a little bit of ‘been there, done that’ in him.
“But what did I get? I got an artist who not only keenly understood his role but understood the scene he was in and where it fell in the grand scheme of the film. I got a talented performer who was more than eager to improvise and stay perfectly in character until the cameras stopped rolling. In short, I got a genuine actor. And I was lucky to have him.”
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his third wife, Sharon, whom he married in January 2000; his sons, Matthias Clark (a musician), Jason Clark (a producer on the Peacock series Ted) and Seth Clark (a film editor); grandchildren Sequoia, Dylan, Elizabeth, Miles, Emily, Izzy, Dax, Emanuel and Lucas; great-grandson Claude; and stepchildren Michelle, Joyce and Ray. He was preceded in death by another daughter, Alexandria.
“He built his own house with his own hands,” his family noted in a statement. “He kept his closest friendships for sixty years. He showed up for the work, and for his people, every time. He was complex. He was tough. He could be gruff. But the moral compass never wavered, and the love was never in doubt. You could see it — in his eyes, in his performances, in the family he loved to keep together. He lived. He lives, forever.”
RIP Sir
