Wilford brimley

Born in Salt Lake City on September 27, 1934, Anthony Wilford Brimley – his full name – served in the Marine Corps, and once back in civilian life, he worked as a farmer and rodeo rider; before becoming a bodyguard for charismatic millionaire Howard Hughes . Advised by a good friend, the actor Robert Duvall , he began working in the world of cinema as a specialist, in titles such as Valor , along with John Wayne .

His life would be changed by Michael Douglas , producer of The China Syndrome , who risked offering him a weighty role in the film, where he gave life to Ted Splinter, an engineer who works at a nuclear plant, who stars in a memorable scene at the end with Jane Fonda . Sydney Pollack got his money’s worth as an Assistant District Attorney, in Absence of Malice , and much later as a sinister law firm thug in The Front . In Barry Levinson ‘s The Best  , he played a baseball team manager, opposite Robert Redford , and in John Carpenter ‘s The Thing ., he appeared without a mustache and with glasses as Dr. Blair, one of Kurt Russell ‘s most disturbing companions , at a scientific base in Antarctica.

He also stood out as an old man rejuvenated after diving into a pool with his fellow residents in Ron Howard ‘s Cocoon . Despite the fact that he played a septuagenarian, Wilford Brimley was only 51 years old at the time of filming. He reprized in  Cocoon: The Return , the sequel.

“I’m just any guy,” he said in an interview published in The New York Times. “I can’t talk about acting, because I don’t know anything about it. I was just lucky enough to get hired.” Married to the also actress  Lynne Brimley, with whom he had four children, years after her death, in 2000, he remarried, with Beverly Berry, who has accompanied him until her death.