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MARSHALL, WILLIAM (1924–2003). American actor.
Despite his theatrical training and experience, and despite one's
natural desire to speak well of the recently deceased, it cannot be
honestly asserted that there was anything special about Marshall's
acting abilities. True, he could, in the sterile manner of Patrick
STEWART, strut across the stage and portentously
intone lines to project the conventional illusion of great acting,
but even the sorts of people impressed with Stewart never mustered
much respect for Marshall's hollow performances. However, his career
merits attention because, like Max VON SYDOW,
Marshall was manifestly determined to avoid the sorts of serious roles
one naturally associates with his stilted style of acting and instead
sought out absurd, execrable films where he could shine by the pure
incongruity of his stately presence. So, although unmemorable as Othello,
Marshall built his reputation by choosing films in which one earn
points simply by failing to break out in hysterical laughter amidst
the incessant nonsense.
Consider what a person would have to
sit through to properly evaluate this actor: Marshall battling in the Roman
arena against Victor Mature in Demetrius and the Gladiators; Marshall
emerging from the mist as Sabu's magic genie in Sabu and the Magic Ring;
Marshall introducing cartoons on Pee-Wee's Playhouse; Marshall playing a
pirate in one segment of Amazon Women on the Moon; Marshall popping up
between the bare breasts in the soft-core direct-to-video films Sorceress
and Dinosaur Valley Girls. Scenes from his episodes of The Man from
U.N.C.L.E., Tarzan, and The Wild, Wild West, or films like
the forgettable and forgotten Skullduggery, would provide only
marginally better interludes.
Still, despite all these dubious entries in his filmography, there were moments
when Marshall's stolid performances transcended their dire contexts
and grudgingly earned genuine respect. He was well employed as one
of the persons baffled by "The Jar" in that memorable episode of The
Alfred Hitchcock Hour; his solemn portrayal of computer expert
William Daystrom in the preposterous Star Trek episode, "The
Ultimate Computer," where he accidentally creates a computer with
a homicidal bent who must be outwitted by William SHATNER's
Captain Kirk, helped to establish Daystrom and his computers as a
recurring presence in the Star Trek universe; and Terry GILLIAM's
decision to cast him as a bum added to the strange, surrealistic atmosphere
of The Fisher King. And outshining everything else in Marshall's
career, there is Blacula—a movie designed and destined to
be a farcical disaster that was rescued by Marshall's insistence upon
playing the role seriously. If there had been an Academy Award for
Best Performance in an Absolutely Atrocious Film, Marshall would have
won hands down. Unfortunately, even Marshall could accomplish nothing
to salvage the execrable follow-ups, Scream, Blacula, Scream!
and Abby, which delivered a lethal one-two punch to end Marshall's
promising career as a horror film icon and drive him back into obscurity.
Still, he kept on working where he could until he was forced into
retirement by Alzheimer's Disease, which cruelly deprived him of his
only asset, that uncanny ability to always maintain his dignity.
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