Dick Miller

Dick Miller (Richard Miller) was one of the hardest-working character actors in American cinema. Born on December 25, 1928, in the Bronx district of New York, he died on January 30, 2019, in the Toluca Lake district of Los Angeles, at the age of 90. In his career spanning six decades, he appeared in more than one hundred and seventy films, mostly in short but memorable roles.

From the Corman years to Joe Dante movies

He served in the US Navy in his youth, then studied psychology in New York. He moved to California in the early 1950s with hopes of becoming a writer; He started his career in the circle of producer-director Roger Corman, known for his low-budget films. She had her first role in 1955's Apache Woman and appeared in many of Corman's films throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

His portrayal of Walter Paisley in 1959's A Bucket of Blood became his signature character; he reused this name in different productions in the following years. The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) is also one of the well-known works of this period.

Director Joe Dante, who trained in the Corman school, cast Miller in almost all of his films. Piranha, The Howling, The 'Burbs, Small Soldiers and The Explorers are examples of this partnership. He reached his widest audience with his role as Murray Futterman, the neighbor who is suspicious of strangers, in Gremlins (1984) and its sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

The same year, he played a gun shop owner in James Cameron's The Terminator. Night of the Creeps, Chopping Mall and Pulp Fiction are also included in his filmography; On television, he worked as a guest actor in many TV series.

His life and career were the subject of the documentary That Guy Dick Miller in 2014. Although his name was not always at the top of the poster, he is remembered as one of the familiar faces of American genre cinema, with his work spanning over half a century.