Ned Beatty once asked Warren Oates about his political leanings. The actor replied, “You know, I’m a by-god constitutional anarchist.” Make no mistake, Warren Oates marched to the beat of his own drum. A pure original, he was one of the best actors in all of cinema. On screen and off, Oates had a big personality with a bigger grin; his persona and acting skills showing a rough edge and a sweet soul.
A self-described “total hick with a mountain accent,” Warren Oates was born on July 5, 1928 in Depoy, Kentucky and was proud to be a Kentuckian and would frequently criticize Hollywood’s anti-Southern bigotry at the time. Most of Hollywood’s Dixie-fried fare in the films of the 40s, 50s, and 60s showed southerners as cartoonish bumpkins and the actor was determined to change that persona with the roles he chose.
In 1957, he got his first big break, appearing in a live production for the television series Studio One. Moving to Los Angeles, he carved out memorable work in tv Westerns where Oates met Sam Peckinpah on the director’s excellent (and short-lived) show The Westerner. The two men shared a love of life and the purity of filmmaking and Oates soon became a member of the Peckinpah stock company.
Oates starred for the filmmaker in the classic films Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Wild Bunch, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. The two men had a lasting friendship and respect for one another. Both lived hard and partied harder but brought out the best in one another on set and on film. When Peckinpah’s masterpiece, The Wild Bunch, received unfair backlash, Oates stood up for the work and admitted how it “shocked the hell out of a lot of moralistic weirdo pinko liberals.” He sympathized with the critics who felt the Mexicans were stereotyped by saying that “some of the protests by Mexican-American groups may be a bit justified. … I feel it is the fault of the semi-intellectual community that writes about or makes films about Mexico, or hillbillies, or any specific group of people that does not belong to their semi-intellectual community. The clichéd Mexican or the clichéd southerner or the clichéd anyone is not a full man.”
The grit and realism Oates exudes in the Peckinpah pictures fit the director’s own grit and hardness. Excellent in each film he made with ol’ Sam, it was in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia where Oates formed himself into the cinematic manifestation of Peckinpah, right down to using the director’s own sunglasses. With a supreme dedication to the performance, the actor dove into the violent nature of the piece, but (amongst the nihilistic nature of the picture) he showed a depth not usually allowed with such a character. His rugged face and every dramatic beat in his dialogue shows the depth of a man living with regret and the realization that his dreams of living a good life are unattainable. Through one of the great “balls-out” performances of its time, Oates gave what many (including me) feel to be his finest.
One cannot imagine these Peckinpah classics without the presence of Warren Oates.
Oates started a successful relationship with filmmaker Monte Hellman, beginning with 1966’s The Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind, two hallucinatory and existential Westerns that gave him the chance to share the screen (and begin a lifelong friendship with) Jack Nicholson.
Early in his career, in 1960’s Private Property, Oates played a dangerous drifter who insinuates himself into a woman’s life. It was the type of role that Oates would never again get the chance to play. It is a character burning with danger and sexual tension who is on a road to violence. His character is a menacing and damaged soul shaped by a broken innocence. The actor is absolutely terrific in this powerful turn.
Throughout the seventies, Oates acted in a succession of extraordinary and unique works in which his performances were always colored with truth. He was poetic as the mute trainer of fighting chickens in Monte Hellman’s masterful 1974 film Cockfighter. As the nomadic GTO in Hellman’s trippy counterculture masterpiece, Two-Lane Blacktop. Oates is an ultra-cool representation of a fading generation and gets one of the film’s best lines, “If I’m not grounded pretty soon, I’m gonna go into orbit.”
During this time the actor also did fine work in some offbeat and interesting Westerns; a genre that welcomed his unique style with open arms. Gordon Douglas’ 1970 film Barquero isn’t perfect, but it puts Warren Oates and Lee Van Cleef against one another for the first (and only) time, bringing out great work in both legendary actors. The same year, Oates held his own against Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s There Was a Crooked Man, sharing a lot of screen time with Douglas and owning every moment.
In 1973’s Kid Blue, the production was plagued by such on-set chaos that it is incredible that director James Frawley delivered such an interesting picture, but the film works due to the charming performances of Dennis Hopper and Warren Oates, two personalities that were born to come together on screen.
One of his very best performances (and films) was for his good friend Peter Fonda in Fonda’s excellent 1971 film The Hired Hand. A dreamlike Western and a lovely meditation on friendship and responsibility, the film stands as one of the least-known films of the Seventies and one of the genre’s best. Oates would act with his friend in two more great pictures, the Grindhouse classic Race With the Devil and Thomas McGuane’s hard to find (but excellent) 92 in the Shade. Seek this film out if you can find a proper print, as both Fonda and Oates are terrific.
In 1973, Oates gave the best cinematic portrayal of John Dillinger in the best film ever made about the legendary outlaw in John Milius’ excellent, Dillinger. The actor was absolutely perfect in the role and actually resembled the man more than any other actor before or since.
As the 1970s (and the artistic freedom that fueled it) were coming to an end, the actor starred in his final Western, Monte Hellman’s 1978 oddity, China 9, Liberty 37. This is a highly interesting work where Oates digs in, giving a soulful and nomination-worthy performance.
In the 1970s, Oates did stand out supporting turns in films such as Terrence Malick’s Badlands, Phil Kaufman’s undervalued The White Dawn, Tony Richardson’s The Border, John Badham’s Blue Thunder, and William Friedkin’s The Brink’s Job (where he nearly stole the entire show in one scene). He also proved to be very funny in comedies such as Spielberg’s undervalued 1941 and Ivan Reitman’s Stripes, where playing it straight actually made his “Sergeant Hulka ” character naturally humorous.
Richard Fleischer’s charming boxing fable, Tough Enough, is a small treasure made quite wonderful by showcasing the actor’s easy going performance and his great chemistry with the film’s star, Dennis Quaid. The film is goofy and cliche-filled silliness, but the cast (led by a wonderful Warren Oates) makes it all work.
In his last film, John Badham’s Blue Thunder (1983) he played a grumpy police captain and completely steals the film by delivering his lines with the old Warren Oates cadence.
As we rewind to 1967, lest we forget his great supporting turn in Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night. Oates played Sam Woods, a southern deputy that wasn’t a good man (yet not inherently bad), but not on purpose. His character was the victim of a bigoted upbringing in a bigoted town during a bigoted time and knew nothing else. Woods had no moral guide and fell victim to the trappings of his home and the people that inhabit it. It’s another standout performance that is every bit as good as Rod Steiger or Sidney Poitier.
Warren Oates had one hell of a life and an amazing career, playing it all out in some of the finest films of their time and amongst some of the era’s great artists. For an exuberant and terrific telling of his engrossing journey, read Susan Campos’ Warren Oates, A Wild Life, one of the best actor biographies around.
When Warren Oates is on screen he can really get to the heart of something truthful. As Richard Linklater said, “… there was once a god that walked the earth named Warren Oates.” Unfortunately, there will never be another like him.
There simply couldn’t be.
