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March 28, 2024, 08:59:56 PM

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Horror Legend Joseph Pilato Has Passed Away - They're Chocking On 'em in Heaven

Started by St_Eddie, March 26, 2019, 06:02:19 AM

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St_Eddie

I'm very sad to have learned today that Joe Pilato has passed away, at age 70.  Horror hounds, such as myself, will know him best from George A. Romero's Day of the Dead (as well as having smaller parts in Romero's Knightriders and Dawn of the Dead).  He memorably played the part of Captain "you've given us a mouth full of Greek salad" Rhodes in Day of the Dead.  Genre fan, Quentin Tarantino gave him a small role in Pulp Fiction, no doubt on the back of the aforementioned Day of the Dead.

Those of you who have ever watched interviews with Joe Pilato in recent years, as did I, will know that his final years were not the happiest.  He drank a lot and bemoaned the lack of a B-movie career on par with Bruce Campbell.  None the less, by all accounts, he was the most gracious, courteous and appreciative of genre stars that a fan could ever hope to meet.

I adore Day of the Dead.  It's my favourite film out of Romero's original zombie trilogy.  Wherever you are now, Mr. Pilato, I hope that you're at peace and may you forever run that great monkey farm in the sky.  You were and shall forever be a cast iron favourite of the horror orientated cinephile.  Though your spirit may have left us, your legacy lives on.  I salute you, Sir.



One of the greatest screen villains of horror has left us and with him, one of the most giving of actors has also departed.  The horror community is a poorer place without you, Mr. Pilato.  You shall be sorely missed.



Joseph Pilato (1949-2019)

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

A nice little heartfelt tribute to him, that. Is that you on the right in that photie, Edders? You look different from your avatar.

What was his role in " Pulp Fiction" ?

St_Eddie

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on March 26, 2019, 08:26:03 AM
A nice little heartfelt tribute to him, that.

Thank you.  From time to time, there's occasionally certain celebrity deaths which hit you hard.  It doesn't happen often but when it does, it's upsetting.  This was one of them.  I wanted to put a little extra effort into this thread, as my way of paying tribute to someone for having an impact on my life, in a positive way.  It seemed to be the least that I could do.

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on March 26, 2019, 08:26:03 AM
Is that you on the right in that photie, Edders? You look different from your avatar.

No, I wish that it was me!  I would have been honoured to meet the man himself.  My avatar is representative of my never-having-met-Joe-Pilato self, sadly.  I chose that photo (via Google search) because it was a fine acknowledgement of Joe Pilato's unwavering dedication to his fans (evidenced by a documentary available on the arrow Blu-Ray release of Day of the Day and fan testimonies).

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on March 26, 2019, 08:26:03 AM
What was his role in " Pulp Fiction" ?

Joe Pilato played the part of the Dean Martin lookalike in the diner which Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) go to; a blink-and-you'll-miss-him role, unfortunately.  I think that his part got cut down, if I remember correctly.  I tried my hardest to track down a clip to link to in my post but alas, I had no luck.

magval

Joe claims From Dusk Til Dawn was written for him by Tarantino, but it never came to pass that he starred in it.

He was class. No-one who's seen Day of the Dead will ever forget his performance in that film, like.

I was going to ask if you'd seen the extras on the Arrow release that you then mentioned, well worth a look for anyone else who's interested in him.

Cool guy. RIP Joe.

St_Eddie

Quote from: magval on March 26, 2019, 01:11:14 PM
Joe claims From Dusk Til Dawn was written for him by Tarantino, but it never came to pass that he starred in it.

Quote"I came up with the Dusk as a directing vehicle for myself," Kurtzman explained years back. "And in the late summer of 1991 at the tail end of shooting Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness I borrowed a dolly and some track from production (with Rob Tapert's permission) and pulled in a favor from Panavision for a camera and shot a promo short for the film. I had no money and I built the sets at KNB using whatever I could find. I had to put up the set on Friday, shoot on Sat. and have everything cleaned up on Sunday so not to disrupt KNB's work on Monday. The effects are crude as it was all posted on video and at the time CGI was a ways off."


AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 26, 2019, 06:02:19 AM
I'm very sad to have learned today that Joe Pilato has passed away, at age 70.  Horror hounds, such as myself, will know him best from George A. Romero's Day of the Dead (as well as having smaller parts in Romero's Knightriders and Dawn of the Dead).  He memorably played the part of Captain "you've given us a mouth full of Greek salad" Rhodes in Day of the Dead.  Genre fan, Quentin Tarantino gave him a small role in Pulp Fiction, no doubt on the back of the aforementioned Day of the Dead.

Those of you who have ever watched interviews with Joe Pilato in recent years, as did I, will know that his final years were not the happiest.  He drank a lot and bemoaned the lack of a B-movie career on par with Bruce Campbell.  None the less, by all accounts, he was the most gracious, courteous and appreciative of genre stars that a fan could ever hope to meet.

I adore Day of the Dead.  It's my favourite film out of Romero's original zombie trilogy.  Wherever you are now, Mr. Pilato, I hope that you're at peace and may you forever run that great monkey farm in the sky.  You were and shall forever be a cast iron favourite of the horror orientated cinephile.  Though your spirit may have left us, your legacy lives on.  I salute you, Sir.
Very nice tribute Eddie. Day of the Dead was always my favourite of Romero's Dead films too, and a large part of that is down to Rhodes who is certainly one of the classic horror villains. He's running that monkey-farm in heaven now. RIP.

NoSleep

I really hope he doesn't have to run such a monkey farm. RIP, Joe. Will have to pull out my Romero Dead trilogy boxed set some time this week.

magval


Glebe

Sad news. He was fantastic in the eminently quotable Day of the Dead.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I've always thought he looks a bit like Bono in Day of the Dead. This made watching him get torn to shreds particularly fun.
Of course, as any discerning viewer knows, Day is superior to Dawn.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 27, 2019, 07:32:13 PM
Of course, as any discerning viewer knows, Day is superior to Dawn.

I always loved George Romero's description of the fans who consider Day of the Dead to be the best of his original trilogy...

Quote from: George A. Romero"People today, looking back on the three zombie films, I think that there are really split camps. There are some people that you can't get 'em away from the first film, you know, that's their love. And there are some people that just sort of celebrate and party with Dawn of the Dead. It's sort of the wildest of the three. It was also the most popular. And then there are the real trolls, you know, who like Day of the Dead."

Proud to count myself among the trolls.