Delightful actor
I threw in Invaders from Mars and James Karen lights the movie up. It's fun going back over movies and TV shows and seeing that he did a lot of good work.
shareThink I've told this story here once before, but wth.
About ten+ years ago, I was at a friend of the family's regular yearly Thanksgiving (or maybe Christmas) dinner where they'd regularly have a dozen+ people over, their family and a handful of orphans and their friends. Younger & older folks & kids. A good mix and always a good time.
Well, only in L.A., one year I find myself rubbing elbows with James Karen! Very friendly and charming man to talk to. And it took me a few minutes to place him, but since I had just re-watched Return of the Living dead recently, I mentioned how great he was in it and he lit up, saying how much fun those movies were, and he was just delightful, very generous with his time and stories with a big horror fan, who just happened to be a friend of a friend of the family.
Luckily for him, I hadn't done any more research, because I might have cornered him the entire evening, as I grew up in NY where he was famous as "The Pathmark Man" in TV commercials since I was a kid, as well as appearing in some of my favorite movies of all time like Mulholland Dr., Poltergeist, The China Syndrome, as well as The Larry Sanders Show and every 80s sitcom you could name.
You lucky dog you!
I had to chuckle when he appeared on Coach. Nothing like getting Craig T. Nelson back in mix. I wonder if they laughed over him having to yell "... you didn't move the bodies!"
It's cool to hear he was nice in person. Thank you.
Wow! You were indeed fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet him. I recently met his costar from Return of the Living Dead, Thom Mathews, and he had nothing but good things to say about James and how much fun he was to be around.
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