There aren’t a great number of people walking around today who can say that they starred in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. There are even less who can say that they were in Hitchcock’s last movie. And even fewer who can say that they died in Hitchcock’s last movie. In fact, there’s only one. Yes, Ed Lauter’s character of Joseph P. Maloney in Hitchcock’s last film Family Plot was the last character that Hitchcock ever killed on screen.
Ed Lauter has had a rather lucrative career in nearly 200 roles in film and television, often playing an unlikeable, militant authority figure. To name just a few: The Longest Yard, Cujo, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Born on the Fourth of July, and Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise. His TV work also spans four decades and he continues to be seen in newer shoes such as Psych and Grey’s Anatomy today.
I was jealous that I didn’t get a chance to meet him at one of the Hollywood Collectors shows in the early 2000’s, but Bob picked up the great photo seen above of Lauter with the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock (Hitch signed the original to him). Bob had also recently regaled me with stories of seeing Lauter at the horse races at Santa Anita. He and his wife were kind enough to ask Bob to sit down with them, while he signed a Hitchcock character photo for him.
My chance to meet Ed Lauter finally came on Tuesday, April 27, 2010. Like Bob’s Santa Anita encounter, mine came completely fortuitously as well. While attending the Carol Burnett and Tim Conway event at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, just as my friends Bob and Steve were telling me that Eddie Deezen was in the crowd, I spotted Ed Lauter walking by. Since Bob had just seen him not long before, I asked him to confirm that it was indeed him.
Bob approached him first and reminded him of their encounter at Santa Anita. It wasn’t really necessary to warm him up, because he was very kind and more than willing to pose for a picture with me. You would think that if Hitchcock had to kill one last guy, he wouldn’t have picked such a nice one.
Return to the Carol Burnett show in Beverly Hills…
My favorites were Real Genius and Gleaming the Cube.
Chris
June 29th, 2010
Turns out Lauter played a pretty classic guest role in an episode of “The Rockford Files” as well.
That show really is a genuine piece of Americana.
Peter
July 1st, 2013