I’m certain that no one is more familiar with Elisha Cook Jr than film noir devotee, para. He appeared in 21 films in that genre, more than any other actor. He was nicknamed, “Hollywood’s Lightest Heavy,” standing 5’5” and at the time he went into the Army, weighing only 123 pounds. He died in 1995.


The Maltese Falcon


The Big Sleep


The Killing

and finally, the film noir “heavy” meets a much bigger one.

I know that the streets of Grafton are much muddier than anywhere else. I also know that thunder rumbles in what appears to be a partly cloudy sky and the storm front never materializes, but the George Stevens scene oozes malevolence. Torrey slipping in the mud as Palance’s character, Jack Wilson, towers over him up on the boardwalk. Both were great

1930 to 1988 in both TV and movies. Amazing career!

Not just film noir, but proto-noir as well: I Wake Up Screaming and more significantly, Stranger on the Third Floor which is recognized as the starting point of the American classic film noir cycle of the 1940s and 50s.

Cook showed up in lots of films. One that comes to mind is the 1973 Electra Glide in Blue, and if you havent seen it, you are missing out. TV, all sorts of TV. Gunsmoke, Star Trek, you name it.

He's worked with Kubrick, Brando, Howard Hawks and on and on.

Hell, man, he was even in Blacula.

Didn't he play Icepick in Magnum PI?

https://youtu.be/9S4JGcOVxrE

Don't bother Knockin starring Marilyn Monore. Plays her Uncle. Was just shown on TCM

The guy was in a lot of things. I remember him in several Perry Mason episodes, the Bogart films and The Killing. But also the real estate guy showing a Dakotas apartment to John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby.

quote:

Originally posted by Bulldog7972:
Didn't he play Icepick in Magnum PI?

Yep, that was him....

I actually looked for a film clip of Cook in Electra Glide in Blue, but couldn’t find one.

He was also in House on haunted hill. That movie gave me the creeps for years.

Even great in bit parts:

'War nerves?' Who said, 'war nerves?'

'Well I heard it on that radio there.'