NOT OT: RIP , Philip Baker Hall

One of our great modern characters actors died this week.

Philip Baker Hall.

I had to look up the full name and to get the spelling of "Philip" correct (one l, not like "Phillip Van Damn or did he only have one "l" too?...and isn't it interesting how the rather solid name "Philip" boils down to the more laid back: "Phil."

I was stunned to read that he'd made it to 90. Which is a reminder. He was great 23 years ago in Magnolia, which made him 67 THEN.

That was a Paul Thomas Anderson(PTA) movie, but of course you can move backwards and find PBH also in Boogie Nights, and further back and find PBH ins PTA's debut film "Hard Eight." (Which I haven't seen in years and must now watch again.)

As it turns out, PTA was a mere PA(Production Assistant) on a movie when he told PBH how much he had liked him playing Richard Nixon in an Altman movie of the play "Secret Honor." That's how PBH got into Hard Eight - and a career was born.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (PSH) appeared in a few PTA films, too, and I'm here to tell you, it took me awhile to keep them apart -- not the actors -- the NAMES. Which was was Hoffman? Which one was Hall? Seeing as William H. Macy was in some PTA films with those two...utter confusion for awhile. (Macy's name didn't sound alike, but it was another three word name.)

But i digress.

Ultimately one could pick Philip Baker Hall out of a "sound line-up"(that great deep, soulful deadpan voice) AND a visual line-up(bags under bags, under bags under his sorrowful, unforgiving eyes.)

I love PBH in Boogie Nights when he comes in on the New Year's Night that the 70's turns into the 80's and gives porn director Burt Reynolds the "cold hard facts": porn is going to be shot and shown on video. In homes. Porn film and film theaters are out. PBH's character "Gondolli" is spooky(likely Mafia) and he comes right at the defiant Reynolds, and its a great scene.

But the greatest part is when the aged, blank faced grandfatherly PBH starts talking in rough earnest about what he likes in porno and what he personally likes in sexual activity (PTA kept the actor behind Hall out of focus because the man was stifling laughter.) Hall's cleanest line int that monologue was great, too: "All I want to do is make a dollar and a cent in this business."

One year after Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, and Philip Baker Hall appeared in Boogie Nights for PTA, another hot director -- Gus Van Sant -- put them into his version of Psycho. (I called it "Boogie Psycho" at the time to friends.) Moore played Lila, Macy played Arbogast, and Hall played "Sheriff Al Chambers."

I had a slight problem with that. Philip Baker Hall just seemed too erudite and city-bred to be playing "Sheriff Al Chambers." But I went with it and when Hall came down the stairs in John McIntire's middle-of-the-night bathrobe and pajamas I felt like: "Hey, they got a pretty damn big character star to play the sheriff. I'm impressed."

Note in passing: McIntire and Hall have entirely different line readings here:

Lila: That's what I want you to do something ABOUT!
Chambers: (Pause) Like what?

McIntire said "like what" with a flinty rural skepticism. Hall actually snorted out a laugh of derision and put more emphasis on the words: SNORT -- "Like what?!"

I guess Hall peaked during that period and PTA was certainly a benefactor. But I know PBH was in lots of other movies and TV productions since the 90s(He was a "handwriting expert" who proved not too expert in "Zodiac" for instance.)

And yes...I know it...he evidently REALLY launched his career playing "the book detective" on Seinfeld.

I "buried the lede": Philip Baker Hall made his name first with "Secret Honor" as a little-released movie all the way back in 1984...and had to work at things for over another decade to become a "household" name -- not in Hard Eight, but in Boogie Nights and Magnolia and Seinfeld.

He wasn't as well cast as Sheriff Al Chambers as John McIntire had been...but he was quite the starry presence in Psycho. I remember him well there, bringing gravitas to a movie that otherwise wasn't getting it.

RIP.