There has always been a place in Hollywood for the Squirrely Little Guy. There are some classics in the field. Peter Lorre is probably the best-known of the lot. Elisha Cook Jr. did his share in the category. Hundreds of men over the years have been “Thug #2” or some ridiculous nickname in role after role for decades. Every once in a while, they have a role with a full name, but they’re almost never the lead, because Hollywood’s not a great place for Squirrely Little Guys to be the lead. Often, they’re stereotyped as being Southern even if they’re from, say, Jersey City.
Tracey Walter is a 5’6” man from Jersey City. He’s the son of a truck driver who played high school basketball, which I’ll admit is hard to picture. His first role was as “Ginger’s brother” in the sexploitation movie Ginger. His next couple of movies were lesser films from Robert Duvall and George C. Scott, but in 1973, he did Serpico. In 1977, Annie Hall. He also started doing TV, with shows like WKRP in Cincinnati and Starsky and Hutch, among others. By the mid-’80s, he’d solidified himself as one of the go-to Squirrely Little Guys in the industry.
For my generation, he’s Bob the Goon. The Joker’s favourite henchman in the Tim Burton Batman. Regardless of what mayhem the Joker’s involved in, Bob is there by his side, ready for what comes next. In the end, he gets what we’ve all come to expect of Joker henchmen, but Bob doesn’t have decades of awareness of the character the way the rest of us do. Still, you kind of wonder what would make you associate with that kind of guy once it becomes clear how nuts he is; there’s a lot going on with Bob that never makes it on camera.
I’ll also confess fondness for him as Cookie in City Slickers. It’s not much of a role; frankly the movie’s full of small characters that don’t get a ton to do. It’s a busy film. But it’s also true that the cast even in those small roles is outstanding. The movie runs on all cylinders; it still holds up (for the most part) today. That I think of Tracey Walter in it ahead of actual Jake Gyllenhaal tells you something about how well he does in it.
His career has gone from Silence of the Lambs to ALF, from Hill Street Blues to Amos & Andrew. Stone-cold classics, notorious flops, and a healthy helping of the completely forgettable. That’s what you get when you’re a Squirrely Little Guy. You can’t write your own ticket in quite the same way when you’re 5’6” and kind of funny-looking. He’s even three inches shorter that Steve Buscemi, clearly the current king of the Squirrely Little Guy. Tracey Walter is a fine actor, even if he only gets three lines.
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