Back To the Future star Crispin Glover announced on Friday that his father, actor Bruce Glover, has died at the age of 92.
Crispin broke the news on his Instagram page, lovingly sharing a string of throwback photos of his father, whom he lost on March 12.
Bruce was known for playing assassin Mr. Wint, one of the villains of the 1971 James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever starring Sean Connery as agent 007.
Three years later, Bruce featured as an assistant to the Jack Nicholson character in the seminal Roman Polanski movie Chinatown.
He also acted on a variety of classic television shows ranging from Gunsmoke and Perry Mason to Murder, She Wrote and The A-Team.
A representative for Crispin confirmed the news of Bruce’s passing this Friday but did not disclose a specific cause of death, according to TMZ.
Back To The Future star Crispin Glover announced on Friday that his father, actor Bruce Glover, has died at the age of 92; Bruce and Crispin pictured in 2019
Bruce was born in Chicago in 1932 and grew up there as ‘a tough working class kid,’ he told the website The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology.
He worked from the age of six as a grocery delivery boy, growing into a school football star but also honing his artistic instincts by selling paintings as a child.
After serving in the Korean War, he landed his first job onstage, dressing as a gorilla and tossing a stripper around as part of a nightclub act in Florida – which prompted a local magician to advise him that ‘you are an actor’ because of how ‘believable’ he was as the ape.
He set off for New York and embarked on a Broadway career in the early 1960s, including in Tennessee Williams’ play The Night Of The Iguana with Bette Davis, as well as Bertolt Brecht’s drama Mother Courage And Her Children with Anne Bancroft.
During the 1960s and 1970s, he also worked extensively in television, featuring on some of the top shows of the era including Mission: Impossible and Gunsmoke.
Bruce’s small screen credits during that period included The Dukes Of Hazzard, Perry Mason, The Mod Squad, Barney Miller and CHiPs.
His best-remembered role arrived in 1971 when he and jazz bassist Putter Smith played assassins Mr. Whit and Mr. Kidd – heavily implied to be lovers – who are after the blood of Sean Connery’s James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever.
Bruce later said Guy Hamilton, the director of Diamonds Are Forever, ‘was wide open to every idea I had and a lot of the success of the humor of that film was me.’
Bruce was known for playing assassin Mr. Wint, one of the villains of the 1971 James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever starring Sean Connery as 007
Bruce’s greatest fame arrived in 1971 when he and jazz bassist Putter Smith (left) featured as assassins Mr. Whit and Mr. Kidd – heavily implied to be lovers
Bruce’s other movies included the 1972 blaxploitation thriller Black Gunn starring James Brown; the two men are pictured in the movie together
He maintained: ‘Those were all my ideas. The final moment in the film where Sean Connery does that rude thing pushing the hooha up my yaha and giving that character his final great sexual moment is the biggest laugh in the movie.’
In 1974 he played Duffy, a taciturn assistant of Jack Nicholson’s detective character Jake Gittes in the seminal film Chinatown also starring Faye Dunaway.
Bruce’s other movies included the 1972 blaxploitation thriller Black Gunn led by James Brown and the 1975 Charles Bronson vehicle Hard Times.
His television career continued through the 1980s with roles on programs like Hart To Hart; The A-Team; Murder, She Wrote and T.J. Hooker.
Bruce welcomed Crispin with his second wife, ballerina Betty Krachey, to whom he was happily married for 56 years from 1960 until her death in 2016.
Bruce welcomed Crispin with his second wife, ballerina Betty Krachey, whom he was happily married to for 56 years from 1960 until her death in 2016; all three are pictured together
He once explained that his and Betty’s method of raising Crispin was ‘not to make him conform to your way of doing things but to help them find their way of doing it which is what I believe any teaching has to be.’
Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, Bruce and Crispin acted together for the first time in a movie shot at the latter’s castle in the Czech Republic.
In 2019, Bruce revealed that the movie was in the process of being edited, but at the time of his death the finished product had yet to be released.
Bruce, who taught acting classes for decades, once remarked: ‘Acting isn’t important, what is important is being a real entity.’
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