GONE TOO SOON
THE BIG-HEARTED, BRILLIANT ACTOR’S GONE TOO SOON
Goodbye to Bill Paxton, Hollywood’s Mr Nice Guy
For many years, Bill Paxton was one of those actors whose face was familiar but his name was often tricky to recall.
He appeared in many Hollywood blockbusters, such as Titanic, Aliens and Apollo 13, but always in supporting roles. It wasn’t until he landed the lead in the action film Twister in 1995 and then went on to star in the TV series Big Love in 2006 that he got his time in the spotlight.
He may have been a leading man only a handful of times, but he was extremely well-respected and popular among his peers, and when he died last week aged 61 from complications due to surgery, the tributes from Hollywood’s A-listers flowed thick and fast. Not only did they reference his acting talents, but time and again, the tweets mourning his sad
and sudden loss pointed out what a lovely guy he was.
“Bill Paxton could play any role, but he was best at being Bill – a great human being with a huge heart,” tweeted True Lies co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“A wonderful man,” said
Tom Hanks, while Kevin Bacon called him “big-hearted, hilarious, brilliant Bill Paxton”.
Charlize Theron thanked him for being a great friend, while fellow actress Jamie Lee Curtis described him as a “funny, talented, loving human”.
“Sweetest man you ever knew,” wrote Sam Neill. “Fine actor and funny as hell.”
To fellow Kiwi actor Karl Urban, he was an “awesome talent and a great guy”.
Not bad accolades for someone who once described himself as “low profile”.
“I’ve had a career that is kind of under the radar, but it sure is varied and I’ve been blessed to be able to get paid to do something I love to do,” he said in an interview.
He said that although he was happy with his career, his biggest disappointment was “not getting to do the romantic roles I always dreamed of. I consider myself an everyman and there will always be an underdog quality to my stuff. People root for me.”
But the plus side of not being a household name was that he was able to lead a fairly normal life. “I’m not heavily scrutinised, I’m not dating a starlet, I’m left alone pretty much.”
Bill lived an hour and a half’s drive from Los Angeles in a town called Ojai. He and wife Louise Newbury raised their children James (22) and Lydia (19) in a rustic home surrounded by tangerine and avocado orchards.
Louise was Bill’s second wife. His first marriage to The O.C. actress Kelly Rowan lasted just a year, and seven years after they divorced, while working in England, he spotted Louise on a bus. “I met my wife on the number 37 bus on the Twickenham High Street, in London,” he told an interviewer. “I saw a gal in a bus queue, she looks my way as she gets on the bus, and that was all the incentive I needed.”
Texas-born Bill was in his early thirties while Louise was still a teenager. “She knew me when I was struggling,” he said. Their relationship went from strength to strength and they would have celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in May.
On one occasion, he fondly recalled a holiday with Louise a couple of years ago, when instead of being pampered in an exotic location, they went on a walking tour through Wales. “We thought these would be nice and leisurely walks, but they were intense 16 or 20 kilometre hikes. After a couple of days, we were just a wreck. But it was also one of the best holidays we’d had in a long time. The blisters were worth it.”
In one of his last interviews, he talked about how he loved binge-watching TV series such as Downton Abbey with his daughter Lydia, a university student. He also spoke about how surreal it was to work with his actor son James in Training Days, the TV series he finished filming shortly before Christmas.
And he revealed that even after 40 years as an actor, he still suffered from nerves. “Every time I get in front of that camera, I have a bit of a panic attack – or when I have to speak in front of a group of people.”
You would never have known that from his performances. Bill decided he wanted to be an actor after doing drama classes at school and moved from Fort Worth, Texas, to Los Angeles when he was 18. Before finding steady acting jobs, he worked as a set dresser on movies and became good friends with James Cameron, who would go on to direct him in movies such as Titanic, in which he played the present-day treasure hunter looking for the wreck of the doomed ship.
An emotional James released a heartfelt statement about Bill several hours after his death, on the same day as the Academy Awards.
“The world is a lesser place for his passing. I hope that amid the gaudy din of Oscar night, people will take a moment to remember this wonderful man, not just for all the hours of joy he brought to us with his vivid screen presence, but for the great human that he was.”