THE CHARACTER ACTOR OF THE WEEK IS...

Harve Presnell 

Though best known these days for playing William H. Macy's gruff, uncooperative father-in-law Wade Gustafson in the Coen Brothers' Fargo ("It's okay, MAC-Donalds. Heh. Whaddya think they do there? They don't drink milkshakes, I assure you."), during my childhood Presnell was best-known as a mighty Broadway baritone and was considered "hunky" by high school musical thespians like my sisters. It's easy to see why if you watch the few movies in which he displayed those rather astonishing pipes of his -- Joshua Logan's unfairly maligned Paint Your Wagon (1969 - Script by Paddy Chayefsky...So there!) and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Presnell's film debut in 1964). Had he been born a decade earlier, he may have been as big a musical film star as Gordon MacRae or Howard Keel, but, caught in the tectonic shift from splashy technicolor Broadway adaptations to the filmic naturalism of the late '60s/early 70s, Presnell -- despite his almost sinister good looks -- didn't fare well. However, his haunting "They Call the Wind Mariah" from Paint Your Wagon was played around our house so much I thought it was a #1 radio hit. During the early 70s, the actor was relegated to Broadway revival touring companies and, whenever the shows went through Denver, my sisters would demand our family attend sometimes threadbare productions of "Annie Get Your Gun" or "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," just to hear Presnell's hoherbass. From 1970 to 1996, Presnell was only in one feature film, the godawful horror anthology/comedy Blood Bath (Joel M. Reed, 1976), and played a very minor recurring role on the TV soap opera, "Ryan's Hope."

In 1996 Harve Presnell unceremoniously burst back onto the film scene as a grizzled character actor, just as Howard Keel had done in the 1970s, and his first two projects were solid hits. The first was a reasonably successful indie about Conan the Barbarian-creator Robert E. Howard, Dan Ireland's The Whole Wide World in which Presnell played Howard's father, and the second was Fargo. Since then, he's appeared memorably in Face/Off, Saving Private Ryan (as General George Marshall), The Legend of Bagger Vance, Mr. Deeds, Patch Adams, Old School, Flags of Our Fathers & innumerable TV shows, including a great, meaty turn on the criminally expired Andy Richter vehicle, "Andy Barker, P.I." (see full episodes of this awesome show at 

http://video.aol.com/video-category/andy-barker-pi/110712). 

As with most great character actors, it hardly matters what kind of Hollywood pap he honors with his appearance, because he always drastically elevates at least the scenes in which he appears. There's an indomitable sly caginess to all of Presnell's septuagenarian sourpuss roles that make him instantly likable, even (well, especially) as a villain. He's able to cow even the most wildly animated leading men by just raising a bone-white eyebrow & setting his jaw. 

His next project (due out later this year) is Bait Shop, starring redneck comedian Bill Engvall & Miley Cyrus' father, Billy Ray. So, um, yeah...You should probably just watch Fargo again.