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

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.