RIP Brian Dennehy --"Silverado": His Best Role?

Brian Dennehy passed this week at age 81. His family made a point of noting that he did NOT die from COVID-19.

For a number of years in the 80's and 90's, Brian Dennehy was my pick for the "big guy" in movies.

It seems like the movies have almost always had a "big guy" who doesn't fully reach leading man hood, but maintains a certain character star power based on the fact that he(and its always a he) IS a big guy.

Victor McLaglen (the Big Guy of the 3 in Gunga Din, memorably fought John Wayne in The Quiet Man)
Ward Bond(the Big Guy who seconded John Wayne as his pal or gentle conflict in a film or two)
Ernest Borgnine (shorter than most "big guys" but stocky and formidable, whether bad guy in From Here to Eternity or good bad guy in The Wild Bunch. I don't count his nice guy in Marty.)
Richard Boone(a very articulate, thoughtful big guy, but a big guy nonetheless.)
George Kennedy(Big and thuggish sans wig in Charade and Mirage; converts to good guy in Cool Hand Luke, alternates thereafter.)

Looking at that list above, its interesting that four of them played against John Wayne -- with Boone and Kennedy as villains in two of Wayne's final Westerns in the 70's. It was said that a number of big guys got their work in Hollywood starting out as Wayne's foes -- he needed guys as big as he was to beat up. (Or to verbally joust with -- I don't recall Wayne fighting Boone on screen.)

The RIPs say that Brian Dennehy started in movies and TV in 1977; so he just missed getting to play against John Wayne as a baddie.

But my favorite role of Dennehy's WAS as a baddie in a Western . Its Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado, my favorite movie of 1985, an attempt to return to the more "innocent" Westerns of the 50s and 60's but with an 80's Indiana Jones flair(Kasdan had written one of those, plus some Star Wars films.) The film purposely eschewed the slo-mo gore of Peckinpah and the weird over-slow operatics of Leone to tell its tale crisply, and with a big cast.

There was a bit of a problem with that cast. The Magnificent Four who centered the tale were played largely by low wattage star actors: Kevin Kline(great nonetheless, deadpan, intelligent and pensive), Scott Glenn(late of Urban Cowboy and The Right Stuff; kinda dull); Danny Glover(hot from The Color Purple and Witness the same year, but not a veteran star); and a new young kid named Kevin Costner(low-billed, he became the biggest star).

In the tradition of The Magnificent Seven where Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen were the buddy leads among the 7, or The Professionals, were Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin were the buddy leads among the 4 -- in Silverado, its Kline and Glenn who are meant to be the star pair...and it never really works. Because Scott Glenn(looking rather like a pallid Carradine brother) never projects stardom. Kline has to carry the load.

And yet: in Kline's scenes where he shares the screen(and the frame) with Brian Dennehy -- THERE's your star pair. The story will force the two characters to take opposite sides, but together before then as wary friends -- Kline and Dennehy are the two stars of Silverado.

One critic wrote that Brian Dennehy in Silverado "looks like a buffalo standing up on two legs," and its true -- and probably on purpose. Dennehy wears a big fur coat, a big beard, big hair -- he's bigger than a bear in this, and very flamboyant and flashy, with a big 100-watt grin that makes you want to like him even as he has to "turn evil" to force a showdown with Kline and company.

That same year -- 1985 -- a clean shaven Dennehy played a mysterious big guy in Florida in Cocoon . Like Richard Boone before him, Dennehy played his bad guy in Silverado like a good guy; and his good guy in Cocoon like a bad guy -- he's mysterious and menacing and you're not quite sure if he's dangerous(he's an alien. From outer space.

So taken was I by Brian Dennehy in his 1985 films that one summer later -- 1986 - I was very disappointed by how he was used in the courtroom romantic comedy thriller "Legal Eagles," with Redford, Debra Winger, and Daryl Hannah in a triangle. Because of the "star package," Dennehy barely shows up in the film (as a mysterious NYC cop) and is barely used. It seemed a spectacular waste of his newfound character stardom to me.

But Dennehy recouped quickly with co-leads in FX and Best Seller and made scores of TV shows, movies, TV movies...a nice long career. Plus a great career on the stage in works like Death of a Salesman(always impressive: the memorization night after night before a live audience.)

But its Silverado for which I will remember Dennehy the most.

"This used to be a peaceful town," his crooked sheriff says. "We could have had a sweet deal."

RIP, Big Guy.