Hollywood is mourning the loss of Allen Garfield, one of the best character actors of all time, to the novel coronavirus.Deadline reported that Garfield, who was 80, died on April 7 of complications of COVID-19. He had been living at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California and had had health issues since suffering a stroke in 1999.
Born Allen Goorwitz to a Jewish family in Newark, N.J. in 1939, Garfield used his real last name in a few of the movies he made after his father’s death as a tribute, but the vast majority of his 119 acting credits were with his stage name. Garfield, who often played nervous schemers, worked with a Who’s Who of the great directors of the 20th century, including Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, Brian De Palma, Woody Allen, Milos Forman, Wim Wenders and Billy Wilder.No matter what part he played, Garfield’s performance was invariably a highlight of every film or television series in which he appeared. He began his movie career in 1968, a moment when glossy Hollywood extravaganzas were fading and grittier stories were being told. Garfield was the perfect fit for the new type of cinema that was in ascendance, where people looked and sounded real.
He had his first important role in the black comedy, Putney Swope (1969) directed by Robert Downey Sr., the father of the well-known actor. Among the high-profile movies that he had key roles in were Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), Altman’s Nashville, Wilder’s The Front Page (1974), John G. Avildsen’s Cry Uncle (1971), De Palma’s Greetings (1968), Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) and Hi, Mom! (1970), Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate (1972) with Robert Redford, Wenders’ The State of Things (1982) and Until the End of the World (1991) and Frank Darabont’s The Majestic (2001). He also appeared in low-budget gems such as Howard Zieff’s Slither (1973) and blockbusters including Tony Scott’s 1987 Beverly Hills Cop II.
After his 1999 stroke, Polanski chose to use him in The Ninth Gate anyway, making his partial paralysis part of his character. In 2004, he suffered another stroke.
In an interview with Skip E. Lowe, he said that he hadn’t thought of Newark as being such a tough place to grow up, although he acknowledged, “I do remember getting beaten up by the barbarians on the way home from Temple Bnai Abraham.”He became a Golden Gloves boxer to fight off anti-Semitic bullies, he said, and later worked as a journalist for 10 years, starting off as a copy boy for the Star-Ledger in Newark and eventually graduating to sports writing. He became the managing editor of a paper in Linden, New Jersey and continued to box, thinking he would be “the Jewish Hemingway.” Once he decided to become an actor, he studied at the Actors Studio in New York, before beginning to get parts on screen.
Many of his colleagues paid tribute to Garfield on social media, including Ronee Blakely, his Nashville co-star. She posted Tuesday on Facebook: “RIP Allen Garfield, the great actor who played my husband in Nashville, has died today of Covid; I hang my head in tears; condolences to family and friends; I will post more later; cast and crew, sending love.”