Earlier this month, one of our faithful readers expressed interest in learning more about character actors, which prompted Morlock Moirafinnie to write an excellent post on Hank Worden, who appeared in secondary roles during the Golden Age.

 In the tightly run studio system of the Golden Age, the lines were drawn between types of screen actors. Movie stars were groomed to play the main roles, and their presence in a film was used to lure people into the theaters; “legitimate” actors were imported from other countries or the stage to star in serious literary or historical dramas, and their names added prestige to a film; character actors were under contract to play secondary roles.  These talented but unsung actors played archetypes — villains, kindly fathers, wise loving mothers, buffoons, best friends, spinsters — with such skill that they often turned simple parts into memorable three-dimensional characters. The old line about “remembering the face but not recognizing the name” is the best definition of a good character actor. Back in the day, few character actors crossed over into starring or leading roles and vice versa.

 The attention on character actors reminded me that the distinction between types of actors has become blurred. And, a result of that is today’s Hollywood films feature far fewer character actors compared to movies in the Golden Age. Fewer films are made these days, and that is the obvious reason for the decrease in character actors, but I have also noticed that in contemporary films, aging movie stars or leading actors often take on secondary roles or character roles, replacing (or, perhaps displacing) the real thing. In independent films, the opposite is sometimes true. Character actors sometimes get a shot at a starring role. In Goodbye Solo, character actor Red West takes on one of the two leading roles, and his years as a secondary player as well as his unique life experiences helped him make the most of this opportunity.

RED WEST AND SOULEYMANE SY SAVANE

Goodbye Solo takes place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and tells the story of a taxi driver from Senegal named Solo who is studying to be a flight attendant. One of his fares, an old man named William, pays him $1000 in advance to take him to a nearby national park the following week. Specifically, William wants Solo to drive him to a cliff called Blowing Rock. When Solo jokes, “What are you going to do, jump off?,” William’s lack of response startles both the cab driver and the audience. Like Solo, we can’t quite believe that this is what he is planning to do. Solo tries to investigate William’s life to determine if this is indeed the old man’s intention, and, if so, why he would make such a drastic decision. Solo tries to convince the old man that life is worth living, but William repeatedly tells him to butt out. Red West plays William, a cipher of a character whose motivations for his decision are never revealed; Souleymane Sy Savane costars as the genuinely charming Solo.

 Goodbye Solo was directed by Ramin Bahrani, an Iranian American born and raised in Winston Salem whose previous films (Man Push Cart and Chop Shop) were well received on the festival circuit. Many independent films are marked by an indie style in which dialogue scenes unfold in long takes, with jerky hand-held camera movement and a minimum of shots. In the hands of an inexperienced indie director, the style is tiresome and monotonous. But Bahrani’s directs in the classic Hollywood style in which scenes are divided into a variety of shots and the camera movement is mostly motivated. The use of close-ups is particularly effective as they are often used in place of dialogue, which prevents scenes from becoming too talky (another weakness for indie films) and showcases the talents of the actors.

 The film is an intimate portrait of an unlikely friendship, so it is fitting that one of the primary techniques is the use of close-ups, which brings the viewer physically and emotionally closer to the characters. Warm, chatty Solo tends to be shot straight on, so we look directly into his friendly face, which is like an open book. The close-ups reveal his feelings and also influence the viewer to identify with him. William is also shot in close up, but not in the same way. He is often shot in profile or from behind, which distances him from the viewer by preventing us from looking into his face. This helps to maintain the aura of mystery that surrounds him. When we do see his face from the front, it reflects the ravages of age and the melancholy of bad choices. We suspect that he will indeed end up at Blowing Rock, though in his minimal dialogue, he never reveals why. West excels in these scenes, where his lined face and subtle expressions reveal as much as we need to know about the character to understand that he is at the end of the line.  (See the trailer at the bottom of this post.)

THE FACES TELL THE CHARACTERS' STORIES

 To date, the part of William in Goodbye Solo is the best role of West’s career, but he has made memorable appearances in other films. And, he has lived one hell of a life. You may not recognize his name, but if you are an Elvis Presley fan, you will recognize the name. West worked for Elvis for over 20 years, from 1955 to 1976.

 Robert Gene West was born in Memphis in 1936 and was one year behind Elvis at Humes High School. A powerful athlete, West was a star football player, so when someone tried to beat up the odd-looking kid with the guitar and the long hair, Red stepped in and prevented it. Later, he rescued Elvis again when some bullies tried to hold him down in the washroom and cut his hair. In 1955, Elvis tapped West to drive him and his band members — known as the Hillbilly Cat and the Blue Moon Boys — around the Deep South from gig to gig. Soon, West’s role morphed into protector not only from the girls who threw themselves at the young singer but also their boyfriends who didn’t much like it.

 West served in the Marines from 1956 to 1958, but he kept in touch with Elvis. The two became very close when tragedy struck the two friends on the same day. Elvis’s mother and West’s father died on the same day in August 1958. When Elvis got out of the army in 1960, West began working for him as a bodyguard, along with his cousin Sonny. Presley devoted himself to making movies during that decade, and West often appeared in bit parts, worked as a stunt man, or doubled for Elvis in his movies. Elvis introduced him to actor Nick Adams, who was starring in the television series The Rebel, and West worked as a stunt man on that show, too.

 While in Hollywood, Elvis organized an ongoing Saturday-afternoon football game with his group of buddy-bodyguards and young actors such as Pat Boone, Robert Conrad, Ty Hardin, and Gary Lockwood. West became friends with Conrad, who helped him get work on the television series The Wild, Wild West, generally as a henchman. Through these connections, West carved out a separate career for himself in the film industry while still working with Elvis.

 West is also something of a musician and songwriter. He penned a couple of songs for Elvis, including “That’s Someone You Never Forget,” “If Every Day Was Like Christmas,” and “Separate Ways.”

WEST, ELVIS, AND JOE ESPOSITO BACK IN THE DAY

 When Elvis returned to performing live in the 1970s, West’s services as a bodyguard were needed again after the singer received some credible death threats. West and his cousin, Sonny, along with a few others, worked in this capacity until 1976 when Elvis’s father, Vernon, fired West, his cousin, and one other bodyguard. The three then wrote Elvis: What Happened?, the first book to reveal the singer’s drug use and abuse. West has always claimed that they wrote the book to help Elvis wake up from his destructive lifestyle, though fans were certainly not happy about the revelations. After that, West returned to the film industry, landing the role of Andy Micklin on Robert Conrad’s television series Baa Baa Blacksheep, also known as Blacksheep Squadron. He was working on an episode when news reached him of Elvis’s death.

 After the series was over, West continued to act in television series, generally in individual episodes of hour-long action or drama series. In the late 1980s, he began popping up as a character actor in high-profile Hollywood films, including Road House with Patrick Swayze, Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, and Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune.

WEST IN ROAD HOUSE

 Somewhere along the way, West studied with Jeff Corey, a character actor who turned to teaching after running afoul of McCarthyism during the 1950s. Like so many others who had taken the Fifth Amendment to avoid ratting out others, Corey was blacklisted from the film industry for over a decade. He returned to college and began to teach acting classes in his garage. Though studios wouldn’t hire him, producers sent unseasoned actors to him for acting lessons. Eventually, his classes became the Professional Actors Workshop.

 Corey used a version of method acting as the basis for his acting classes but was less rigid in his approach than his East Coast counterparts Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. Through improvisational exercises, he taught students to tap into their imaginations and subconscious to help the actor relate to his character in the present. In contrast, Strasberg’s Method urged the actor to create a set of past circumstances for the character to explain his behavior or emotions. Corey stressed simplicity as the key; Strasberg urged his actors to ferret out a character’s complexities. Corey made an impact on the film industry through the contributions of his students who included some of the best actors of the 1960s and 1970s. Among those who were part of the Professional Actors Workshop were James Dean, Anthony Perkins, Shirley Knight, Jane and Peter Fonda, Robert Blake, Leonard Nimoy, Rob Reiner, screenwriter Robert Towne, director Taylor Hackford, Jack Nicholson, and Red West.

 I learned about Red West’s post-Elvis career a couple of years back while researching a book on Presley. I realized then that I had seen West in several character parts during the 1990s but had not recognized him. My favorite Red West role is from Francis Coppola’s The Rainmaker, which was based on the John Grisham book. Completely underestimated by reviewers at the time, this courtroom drama lacked the visual and narrative experimentation of Coppola’s major films. Perhaps the critics were expecting something more provocative and daring because it was Coppola. At any rate, the reviews were lukewarm, and the film’s merits went unnoticed. However on this film, Coppola was not interested in experimenting with narrative structure and genre;  instead he was interested primarily in the craft of acting. He formed an acting workshop on the set, in which the actors continually flushed out and developed their characters during the film’s production. Every day they worked together to bring more to their performances. They relied on all of the tricks and techniques of the Method — back stories, sense memories, improvisations — to give their characters added depth. Matt Damon was an up-and-coming movie star at the time when he was tapped to play the leading character, but the secondary roles were filled by notable actors from multiple generations — Teresa Wright, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Mary Kay Place, Dean Stockwell, Danny Glover, Virginia Madsen, Danny DeVito, Roy Scheider, Claire Danes, Andrew Shue, and Red West. West’s experiences with Jeff Corey fit right in with Coppola’s on-set acting colloquium, and he stood out  among a group of actors who were at the top of the game during this film.

WEST'S HEARTBREAKING SCENE IN THE RAINMAKER

In The Rainmaker, West plays grieving father Buddy Black, whose son suffers from leukemia because the insurance company won’t pay for proper medical care. A simple working-class man whose family is everything to him, he is in a stupor of grief after his son dies during the course of the film. West has virtually no lines in the film, and his performance consists of body language and facial expression. He inhabits the character of Buddy Black — much like he does with the character of William in Goodbye Solo. Buddy sits in court every day as a young, inexperienced lawyer (Matt Damon) tries to sue an insurance giant on behalf of Black’s son. In one heartbreaking scene, Buddy brings a framed photo of his son to court and slowly walks by the lawyers’ tables quietly pointing out his dead son.  I didn’t recognize West when I saw this film in the theater at the time of release, and years later, when I put the name to the face, I couldn’t believe that it was Elvis’s former bodyguard — author of the notorious tell-all book — giving such a rich, impressive performance alongside so many notable actors.

 When reviewers began to single out West for his performance in Goodbye Solo, I was glad that he was getting the recognition that he deserved. It is an incredible performance by an actor who has traveled an unusual path to get to this point in his career.

 On a final note: Elvis Presley biographers tend to trash the singer’s entire movie career. They are fond of pointing out that Elvis had really wanted to be a serious actor, but his appearances in so many lightweight musical comedies prevented him from doing so. However, without training or acting classes, I am not convinced that Elvis could have been a successful serious actor. Oddly enough, I do think that Red West has achieved the kind of acting career that Elvis always wanted.