Elisha Cook Jr.

I think many old movie fans are probably similar to me and my wife. After watching enough of these old films, some of those faces that were formerly relegated to the background in significant yet limited supporting roles start to come forward as they become more and more familiar. Moving beyond each picture’s one or two big-name stars, one begins to pay increasing attention to these faces behind the faces – all those various character actors and bit players who really round out the cast and add so much to these films.

So many of these people are now largely forgotten by the public, although quite a few of them were well known at the time and their contributions were quite significant. For this reason, I thought it would be interesting to do a series of reviews based upon the careers of one of these supporting actors. This should offer a somewhat unique way of looking at a series of films – as opposed to the usual genre-, theme-, or superstar-based series. Besides highlighting the career of an unduly overlooked subject, it can also bring together an interesting cross-section of films that wouldn’t often be grouped together. This is certainly the case with the actor I’ve chosen to look at here – Elisha Cook Jr.

Elisha Cook has been in some great movies and is particularly well known to fans of film noirs due to his roles in films such as Maltese Falcon (probably his best known role – as Wilmer) and The Killing. It is probably his good work in such memorable films that has led Cook to being not quite as “forgotten” as most of old Hollywood’s character actors. And yet, as a simple Google search for Mr. Cook reveals, the majority of the websites and sources discussing the actor simply recycle the same information over and over again. You can look at his page on IMDB or Wikipedia or one of the many others, but they all say more or less the same thing - i.e., known as “Hollywood’s lightest heavy,” the diminutive Elisha Cook made a lengthy Hollywood career out of playing fall guys and spineless villains, including his most memorable roles in such films as The Maltese Falcon and Shane. Such descriptions are great at boiling down a career to only the most essential details, but I have to think that there is something more to a man who had as long and successful a film and television career as Cook had (if you haven’t already looked at that Wikipedia page, do so now and check out the list of different directors Cook worked with throughout his career). It is all the information that is left unsaid that always makes me wonder about these lesser known actors and actresses. Surely there is more to a person who has had such a long and varied career that cannot be captured in just a brief paragraph or two. Off and on over the next several weeks, I’ll try to see if we can’t flesh out that description of Cook a little more by taking a more concentrated look at the actor’s films (and maybe even a bit of his extensive TV work) and maybe by seeing if we can’t find out a little more information from some print sources. As always, any suggestions or feedback is welcome.