Jack Warden, Man of Brawn

What kind of a character comes to mind when we think of Jack Warden? He finished up his career mainly with lovably gruff comedic supporting roles, as his coach from HEAVEN CAN WAIT and businessman from SHAMPOO and SO FINE. Earlier in his film career (he appeared in much television, but these have been mostly lost to the airwaves -- with rare exceptions, such as his famous turn in The Twilight Zone, where he played a lonely convict stranded on another planet, who gets a female robot companion), he was an everyman, as with his role in films such as TWELVE ANGRY MEN, or as a soldier.

Now I certainly haven't seen every one of his films, and he probably has played tough guys, but the above is the impression I have on this fine actor. So it was a revelation to see him in THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING. This was a highly atypical role for Jack Warden, that of a stocky sociopath who could believably cream you with his fists. (Reading his IMDb bio, I see he began his working career as a boxer, so the act of getting physical was not alien for him. And I was looking closely at the fight scene of this movie, bouncing off the walls and crashing through windows, and it didn't appear as though he had a stunt double.)

I wouldn't normally have thought of Jack Warden as a match for heroic "action star" Burt Reynolds, but Warden pulled it off in this film quite nicely (he and Reynolds were around the same height), and his villainous role was a refreshing change-of-pace.
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