Rest In Peace, Bill Paxton: (1955-2017)

BILL PAXTON
May 17, 1955 – February 25, 2017 (age 61)
Cause of Death: Complications following surgery

Bill Paxton always reminded me of a grittier John Ritter and I always mistook him and Bill Pullman for some reason (they both starred in the film Brain Dead). Paxton rode the line between good guy and villain and could fill either role with ease. You could love him as the polygamous patriarch in the television series Big Love or you could dislike his villainous nature in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was the man getting the story from the elderly Rose in Titanic but he was also the less than likable Joe Loder in Nightcrawler. The man was in everything from James Cameron’s The Terminator, Aliens, and True Lies to Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. He even directed a few films, including Frailty, his directorial debut, co-starring Matthew McConaughey, and The Greatest Game Ever Played, starring Shia LaBeouf as a young golfer in 1913. But to me, he will always be Bill Harding, the retired storm chaser who was just trying to get his wife to sign divorce papers, alongside Helen Hunt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (as deceased) in 1996’s Twister.

BILL PAXTON’S FILMOGRAPHY

BILL PAXTON’S TELEVISION