While I usually remember when an actor first blips on my 'ooh, who's that' radar - and it's almost always a flawed project that begins the addiction - the movie that introduced me to actor Scott Wilson is lost in the mists of time.
Most likely, it was The Great Gatsby. It was required viewing in high school after reading the novel, and it was then that I most likely noticed this movie veteran. Wilson played George, the cuckold gas attendant husband of Karen Black, and (..spoiler alert!...) eventual murderer of Gatsby. With a cast featuring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Bruce Dern as wealthy socialites, it's Wilson as the lower class schlub who loses his unfaithful wife to a car accident that brings any kind of real emotion to this overwrought drama. The most memorable scene of the movie has Wilson sneaking into Gatsby's estate with a gun after believing that the rich man was behind the wheel of the car that killed his wife. As Gatsby lounges in his pool with his back towards the house, we see George, with tears in his eyes, aim the gun at Gatsby. He shoots him a few times, then, finally, and quietly, Wilson places the gun in his own mouth. I'm almost sure you can hear the metal clank against his teeth. It's certainly one of the most heartbreaking suicides ever put on screen, and it's all because of the delicate work of Scott Wilson.
I wish I had a still to show how emotionally devastated Wilson looks during this scene. Alas, even Google image fails me here. The Great Gatsby also has another great character actor connection because William Atherton sings What'll I Do on the soundtrack. Coincidentally, Atherton and Wilson worked together in The New Centurions, an okay cop movie based on a Joseph Wambaugh book.
The Ninth Configuration was Wilson's only major role of the 1970s besides Robert Aldrich's The Grissom Gang, and it's a shame, because they proved he could carry a picture. He plays an astronaut who had a nervous breakdown before a flight, and now hides out in an insane asylum with other servicemen with varying degrees of sanity.
Configuration revisits William Peter Blatty's theme of good and evil that was introduced in The Exorcist, and also makes use of Blatty's start in comedy (he co-wrote A Shot in The Dark with Blake Edwards) by giving the cast the nuttiest non-sequiters this side of a Marx Brothers movie.
"I think the end of the world just came to that bag of Fritos I had in my pocket."
"He is Gregory Peck in Spellbound. He comes to take over the mental asylum, and he's nuts himself. I swear it. It's just like that picture. I took a fork and in the tablecloth in front of him, I made ski tracks and he fainted."
Nutty jokes aside, it's a movie about the meaning of life, and all that jazz, and there's a remarkable fight sequence in a bar that has Stacy Keach kicking major biker ass to save Wilson from humiliation and to teach him that good exists, and that's how you know there is a God. Or something like that.
Yes Virginia, there is an afterlife. And you can leave ghosty medals to prove it to doubting astronauts.
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Wilson works more now than he ever did. He does a lot of elder statesman roles, showing up in G.I. Jane, Pearl Harbour and even CSI. He had pretty decent roles in Behind The Mask, and in the Shiloh trilogy, (yes I even watched those) and was killed off way too soon in Johnny Handsome. His best sheriff role was in Clay Pigeons and he played a chain smoking doctor in The Exorcist 3 for William Peter Blatty. Year of the Quiet Sun is his only other starring role, and one I still haven't seen, despite owning it on DVD. The DVD also has the only lengthy interview I've seen with him, and it answered a few questions I had about his early work (Burt Lancaster was a major reason he got hired for studio jobs). He doesn't get the screen time or credit he deserves, but Wilson does bring a special something to each role he plays. And for that, he'll remain one of my favourite actors.
Wilson works more now than he ever did. He does a lot of elder statesman roles, showing up in G.I. Jane, Pearl Harbour and even CSI. He had pretty decent roles in Behind The Mask, and in the Shiloh trilogy, (yes I even watched those) and was killed off way too soon in Johnny Handsome. His best sheriff role was in Clay Pigeons and he played a chain smoking doctor in The Exorcist 3 for William Peter Blatty. Year of the Quiet Sun is his only other starring role, and one I still haven't seen, despite owning it on DVD. The DVD also has the only lengthy interview I've seen with him, and it answered a few questions I had about his early work (Burt Lancaster was a major reason he got hired for studio jobs). He doesn't get the screen time or credit he deserves, but Wilson does bring a special something to each role he plays. And for that, he'll remain one of my favourite actors.
On the DVD for Blake Edwards' A Fine Mess, they've 
It dares to name 
On VHS:
