Edward Woodward. RIP

[poliphilo]

Edward Woodward deserved better material. He played a couple of TV hard-nuts and that branded him- and made it difficult for him to be accepted in other roles. I never watched Callan, but I remember it going down well in the playground. The Equalizer - an infantile fantasy about a good man with a gun- went down well in the playground too.

His reputation will rest on two very good, small films- the Wicker Man (obviously) and Breaker Morant- in which he plays a soldier who is left to carry the can for a war crime that is condoned from on high. If the dice had fallen right he could have been a major film star.

There's one more film to come- A Congregation of Ghosts- in which he plays a spectral vicar. It sounds promising.

Comments

edward woodward

[nashey1888.livejournal.com]

I always remember John Sessions saying something about how if you remove all the Ds from his name he'd be ewar woowar!! In his way of saying it, it was really funny.
Jenny

Re: edward woodward

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes! I believe some of his friends used to call him "Ewar".

Re: edward woodward

[(Anonymous)]

I must confess I never understood his popularity as an actor. He seemed to play tough guys but I never thought of him as radiating toughness. He won an emmy for The Equaliser, but paid quite a price in that he had a heart attack whilst filming it in 1987 and aged badly thereafter, but never seemed to graduate to old codger roles.

Ian

Re: edward woodward

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He had an old codger role in The Binmen. I never watched it, so I can't say how convincing he was.

Have you seen him in Breaker Morant? That's the performance he deserves to be judged by.