Barry Bostwick is 81 years old today. He was born on 24 February 1945. And we are so much better off for it!
Everyone knows Bostwick because of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But if that’s all you know about him, you are misinformed. For one thing, he works constantly. You’ve seen him in a lot of stuff without knowing it. And the part of Brad Majors is the opposite of the kinds of roles he normally plays. Brad is the lamest character in the film. The criminologist (Charles Gray) and Dr Everett V Scott (Jonathan Adams) are way cooler than he is!
Bostwick is a great actor. He also seems to be a crazy man. Or maybe he is just that good an actor. Over the last few decades, he’s an actor I’m pleased to see popping up in small roles in interesting films. The man has good taste in film! He had small but (typically) unhinged roles in two Diani & Devine films The Selling and Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse.
Tales of Halloween (2015) is a great example of why I love Barry Bostwick. He stars in “The Night Billy Raised Hell.” In it, a little boy tries to egg the house of an old man played by Bostwick. But the old man stops him and apparently takes the kid on a night of serious pranks (actually, more felonies). As usual, Bostwick doesn’t hold back. And it works brilliantly.
But in order to truly appreciate Barry Bostwick, you need to watch Megaforce. It is a rare film where he gets top billing. And it is something else. It answers the age-old question, “Can right-wing reactionary politics co-exist with homoerotic spandex?” And the answer is clear: not yet!
Barry Bostwick via Wikimedia under CC BY 2.0.