M. Emmet Walsh, Blood Simple and Blade Runner Actor, Dies at 88

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M. Emmet Walsh, who won a Spirit Award for his role in the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple, died Tuesday in Vermont. He was 88. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the cause of death was cardiac arrest. Walsh turned in performances that were equal parts comedic and menacing in such films as The Jerk, Blade Runner, and Raising Arizona. The actor got his start in an episode of The Doctors in 1968. From there, he carved out the unique niche of playing big scary guys. He played the sniper obsessed with killing Steve Martin in The Jerk, the police chief in Critters, Deckard’s superior in Blade Runner, and sports reporter Dickie Dunn in Slap Shot. He led the Coen brothers’ first feature, Blood Simple, as a no-good P.I., a performance that compelled Roger Ebert to name him “that poet of sleaze.” Walsh told THR that he got approached more for his work in Blade Runner than any other film. Rian Johnson, who directed Walsh in Knives Out, said the actor came to set with only two things: “a copy of his credits, which was a small-type single spaced double column list of modern classics that filled a whole page, & two-dollar bills which he passed out to the entire crew. ‘Don’t spend it and you’ll never be broke.’ Absolute legend.”