Robert Forster, a prolific Oscar-nominated actor, died Friday night in Los Angeles after battling brain cancer, his publicist confirmed to theHollywood Reporter. He was 78.
Forster starred in the Quentin Tarantino flick “Jackie Brown,” earning him an Academy Award nomination for his role as bail bondsman Max Cherry.
The actor’s most recent appearance came in the Netflix film “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,” in which Forster reprised his “Breaking Bad” character Ed “the Disappearer,” in the spinoff film that was released on Friday.
Forster also held roles in Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” and in “Werewolf” and has acted in more than 100 films.
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Forster also had arecurring guest roleon the hit Fox family sitcom “Last Man Standing” as Mike Baxter’s widower father, Bud Baxter, who opened a marijuana dispensary in Colorado after legalization.
Following news of Forster’s death, his “Jackie Brown” co-star Samuel L. Jackson tweet that Forster was “truly a class act / Actor !!”
A native of Rochester, New York, Forster quite literally stumbled into acting when, in college intending to be a lawyer, he followed a fellow female student he was trying to talk to into an auditor ium where “Bye Bye Birdie” auditions were being held. He would be cast in that show, that fellow student would become his wife with whom he had three daughters, and it would start him on a new trajectory as an actor.
A fortuitous role in the 1965 Broadway production “Mrs .Dally Has a Lover “put him on the radar of Darryl Zanuck, who signed him to a studio contract. He would soon make his film debut in the 1967 John Huston film “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” which starred Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor.
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Forster would go on to star in Haskell Wexler’s documentary-style Chicago classic “Medium Cool” and the detective television series “Banyon.” It was an early high point that he would later say was the beginning of a “27 – year slump. “
He worked consistently throughout the 1970 and 1980 s in mostly forgettable B-movies – ultimately appearing in more than 100 films, many out of necessity.
Robert Forster, left, and Denise Grayson attend the 18 th Annual Movies For Grownups Awards at Beverly Wilshire Hotel, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Forster, the handsome character actor who got a career resurgence and Oscar-nomination for playing bail bondsman Max Cherry in “Jackie Brown,” has died at age 78. Forster’s agent Julia Buchwald says he died Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, at home in Los Angeles of brain cancer. (Photo by Phil McCarten / Invision / AP, File)
“I had four kids. I took any job I could get,” he said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune last year. “Every time it reached a lower level I thought I could tolerate, it dropped some more, and then some more. Near the end, I had no agent, no manager, no lawyer, no nothing. I was taking whatever fell through the cracks .
It was Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film, “Jackie Brown,” that put him back on the map. Tarantino created the role of Max Cherry with Forster in mind – the actor had unsuccessfully auditioned for a part in “Reservoir Dogs,” and the director promised not to forget him.
In an interview with Fandor last year, Forster recalled that when presented with the script for “Jackie Brown,” he told Tarantino, “I’m sure they’re not going to let you hire me.”
Tarantino replied: “I hire anybody I want.”
“And that’s when I realized I was going to get another shot at a career,” Forster said. “He gave me a career back and the last 14 years have been fabulous. “
Robert Forster is seen on May 27, 2019, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by gotpap / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images) (Getty)
The performance opposite Pam Grier became one of the more heartwarming Hollywood comeback stories, earning him his first and only Academy Award nomination. He ultimately lost the golden statuette to Robin Williams, who won for “Good Will Hunting.”
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) After “Jackie Brown,” he worked consistently and at a decidedly higher level than during the “slump,” appearing in films like ” The Descendants, “David Lynch’s” Mulholland Drive, “” Me, Myself and Irene, “” Olympus Has Fallen” and “What They Had,” and in television shows like “Breaking Bad” and the “Twin Peaks” revival. He said he loved trying out comedy as Tim Allen’s father in “Last Man Standing.”
He’ll also appear later this year in the Steven Spielberg-produced Apple series “Amazing Stories.”
Even in his down days, Forster always considered himself lucky.
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“You learn to take whatever jobs there are and make the best you c an out of whatever you’ve got. And anyone in any walk of life, if they can figure that out, has a lot better finish than those who cannot stand to take a picture that doesn’t pay you as much or isn’t as good as the last one, “he told IndieWire in 2011. “Attitude is everything.”
Forster is survived by his four children, four grandchildren and Grayson, his partner of 16 Years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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