David Huddleston, 85, noted actor in 'Big Lebowski,' 'Blazing Saddles'
. By Sam Roberts New York Times . NEW YORK - David Huddleston, a burly,
cantankerous, and prolific character actor who had the title role
opposite Jeff Bridges in "The Big Lebowski," Joel and Ethan Coen's 1998
mistaken-identity noir comedy, died Aug. 2 in Santa Fe. He was 85. His
wife, Sarah C. Koeppe, said the cause was complications of heart and
kidney disease. "The Big Lebowski" was one of two cult films in which
Mr. Huddleston was immortalized. In the other, Mel Brooks's goofy 1974
Western, "Blazing Saddles," he played the blowhard Mayor Olson Johnson.
In "The Big Lebowski," a riff on Raymond Chandler, he played the
conniving, hectoring multimillionaire in a wheelchair, Jeffrey
Lebowski, who is being targeted by bungling crooks. Instead, they
unwittingly go after Bridges's character, a bearded stoner layabout who
is familiarly known as The Dude but who formally shares the rich man's
name. Mr. Huddleston, who started performing when he was 4 years old to
help support his rural Virginia family, appeared in scores of plays,
films, and television shows beginning in the late 1950s, a presence
notable for his sparkling blue eyes and poker-faced wit. "Even when I
play heavies I try to play them with a twinkle in my eye," he once
explained. "Besides, it makes him seem much meaner when he does kill.
Mr. Huddleston played the title roles in "Santa Claus: The Movie" in
1985 and "Hizzoner," an NBC series in 1979 about a small-town mayor. He
was nominated for an Emmy for portraying Grandpa Arnold on the
comedy-drama "The Wonder Years," which ran on ABC from 1988 to 1993.
The role he said he relished most was that of Benjamin Franklin, which
he played in revivals of "1776" on Broadway in 1998 and at Ford's
Theater in Washington in 2003. Sporting a buffalo fur coat and spinning
six-shooters, he also played Big Joe in the director Robert Benton's
first film, "Bad Company," a 1972 Civil War-era drama. In the movie,
Mr. Huddleston's gang is about to rob a group of runaways (who include
Jeff Bridges in a starring role). "We'll take them, Big Joe," one gang
member assures him. Big Joe, without looking up from eating his beans,
blithely replies, "If it was a blind lady in a wheelchair, I'd still
give them the odds. Vincent Canby, praising the film in The New York
Times, wrote that Mr. Huddleston played the part beautifully, "as if he
were Orson Welles touring 'Macbeth' in the provinces with a troupe of
rejected performing dogs. David William Huddleston was born on Sept.
17, 1930, in Vinton, Va., in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke. His
home had no running water or electricity. His mother, Ismay Hope Dooley
Huddleston, a teacher, handed him scripts to perform at church pageants
and before civic groups to earn donations. "Needing a prompt from his
mother got him his first laugh at age 4, and he was hooked," Koeppe
said. He served as an engine mechanic in the Air Force, then enrolled
in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York on the GI bill and
graduated in 1958. Mr. Huddleston said he once asked James Cagney his
advice about acting, to which Cagney replied: "Try never to get caught
at it, kid. Mr. Huddleston appeared in touring companies of Broadway
shows and by the early 1970s had supporting roles in film with John
Wayne in "Rio Lobo," Jimmy Stewart in "Fool's Parade," Bette Davis in
"Family Reunion," and Gregory Peck in "Billy Two Hats. He later
appeared on TV in, among other shows, "Gunsmoke," "Murder, She Wrote,"
and "The West Wing. In 1984, he received a Drama Desk nomination for
his portrayal of Charlie, Willy Loman's successful neighbor, in a
celebrated revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" that
starred Dustin Hoffman. The Coen brothers have said they remembered Mr.
Huddleston from that stage role when they cast him in "Lebowski. Koeppe
and his son, Michael, an actor, are the only immediate relatives he
leaves. Mr. Huddleston told The Santa Fe New Mexican in 2014 that
people still stopped him to spout verbatim his lines from "Lebowski"
and from "Blazing Saddles," which, he said, "was probably the most fun
I ever had on a set. He almost didn't make the movie. He had been
passed over for one part when he was offered the role of the mayor, who
had only a few lines. Mr. Huddleston told his agent to reject it.
According to the 2007 book "I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski: Life,
'The Big Lebowski,' and What Have You," Mel Brooks then called Mr.
Huddleston and asked in disbelief, "You'd turn down a Mel Brooks
picture? He invited Mr. Huddleston to lunch, where they reviewed the
entire script and stole funny lines from other characters. By dessert,
Mr. Huddleston had a major supporting part. When the film was nearing
completion, John Hillerman, who played the ice cream shop owner Howard
Johnson, from whom most of Mr. Huddleston's jokes were cribbed, turned
to him and said, "You know, when I first read this script, I had a much
bigger part.
