Hollywood loses one of the nice guys
Amid Oscar-night revelry, Paxton mourned by stars
Bill Paxton was living proof that nice guys don’t finish last.
Genuinely modest, innately talented and blessed with wit, humor and mischievousness, Paxton was currently starring in CBS-TV’s “Training Day” series when he died suddenly yesterday after complications from surgery.
He was 61 and leaves his wife, Louise, and children, James and Lydia.
A Texas native who won an Emmy for the 2012 hit mini-series “Hatfields & McCoys,” Paxton worked with James Cameron on “Aliens,” “True Lies” and “Titanic,” starred in HBO’s “Big Love” and was a journeyman actor content to play key supporting roles as well as leads.
Cameron saluted his friend of 30-plus years yesterday writing, “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.”
Tom Hanks tweeted, “Bill Paxton was, simply, a wonderful man.”
Tony Goldwyn: “We lost you WAY too soon.”
Jordan Peele (“Get Out” writer/ director): “Bill Paxton was notoriously one of the nicest people in the industry. He also gave us some of the all-time most iconic movie moments.”
When he was first noticed as the bullying brother in John Hughes’ 1985 “Weird Science” or Kathryn Bigelow’s bleak vampire thriller “Near Dark” (‘87), Paxton seemed a hell-raising wild man ready for whatever came, good times or bad.
In fact, for his screen debut in 1983’s military school-themed “Lords of Discipline,” he was billed as “Wild Bill Paxton.”
Scene-stealing work in the underrated crime thriller “One False Move” (’92) and as Morgan Earp in the 1993 “Tombstone” opposite Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp confirmed that here was an actor with range for a variety of roles.
He starred opposite Helen Hunt in “Twister,” was featured in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and took over Denzel Washington’s Oscarwinning role for TV’s “Training Day” which is set 15 years later.
Paxton’s Detective Frank Rourke, however, is not the sadistic dirtbag that Washington created but its flip side, a tough-talking, heroic cop who works and bends the law for positive effect.
Production was completed on the series in December. Paxton had finished playing Emma Watson’s dad in “The Circle,” adapted from a Dave Eggers’ book that is to open April 28 and will be his final credit.