Tune into
@margateradio at 6pm today for the fourth episode of THE MOVIEGOER 🎥
The third episode focuses on Robert Forster 🍿
The Moviegoer uses sonic collages to explore the lives and careers of some of my favourite actors.
Robert Forster, born on July 13, 1941, in Rochester, New York, initially pursued a career in law before a chance encounter at a casting audition changed his trajectory. John Huston cast him in Reflections in a Golden Eye as the handsome army private who becomes the object of desire for both Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando’s characters.
By the late sixties, Forster had become the next big thing. In 1968, he appeared opposite Gregory Peck in Robert Mulligan’s 1968 suspense Western The Stalking Moon. The next year, he starred in Haskell Wexler’s 1969 counter-culture classic Medium Cool as a disgruntled news cameraman. In 1970, he was offered a TV series, Banyon, about a private investigator in 1930s Los Angeles. While the show was cancelled after one season, Quentin Tarantino remembered Forster’s role in it when he was casting Jackie Brown more than two decades later.
By the 1970s, Forster wasn’t auditioning for A-list productions any more. Eager to work, he embraced any role or film that came his way. Indeed he gained a reputation for his B-movies, be it a crime story, action movie, disaster tale, or combat film.
In 1997, his vast experience playing shady detectives and honest crooks paid off when Quentin Tarantino cast him as the world-weary bail bondsman, Max Cherry, in Jackie Brown. His poignant performance of a middle-aged man rediscovering his passion for life garnered him both critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Forster, who had neither an agent nor manager at the time, suddenly was back in demand.
He died on October 11, 2019, at age 78 in Los Angeles. He passed away at home, surrounded by family, on the same day his last film was released.
#robertforster
