Squeezed

G.D. Spradlin, who learned how to be an evil, powerful, manipulative bastard as an Oklahoma oil man and put that skill set to use as a prolific heavy character actor, has died at the age of 90. Best remembered as Nevada Senator Pat Geary, who goes Jack Woltz one better and gets a whole hooker in his bed rather than just a head, Spradlin didn’t begin acting until he was in his 40s and still managed to compile more than 70 films on his resume. When not attending donkey shows with Fredo, Spradlin did his best Tom Landry impression in North Dallas Forty and sent Martin Sheen up river to kill Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. But his knack for the heavies was his stock in trade, including sadistic Sheriff Cyrus Buelton in Tank, deranged racist commandant of the of the Carolina Military Academy in The Lords of Discipline, Coach Moreland Smith, who made Bob Knight look cuddly in One on One, the guy pulling Johnny Depp’s strings on an assassination attempt in Nick of Time, and Lyndon Johnson in the 1985 TV mini-series Robert Kennedy & His Times.