Source: Memory Alpha
You may not know the name but the picture of him might look familiar. Maybe you remember him from a brief appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a holodeck character, or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where he, er, also appeared as a holodeck character, but at least he was in several episodes. Or you might remember him as Murray Futterman from Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch or a doomed pawn shop owner from The Terminator. Or from more than a hundred and fifty other cameos.
Or you might recognize him as a hip vacuum cleaner salesman from the original 1957 Not Of This Earth, or the original 1960 Little Shop of Horrors as a customer with real taste in flowers. If you’re familiar with those you might also know his only starring role as Walter Paisley in A Bucket Of Blood. I’ve written previously about that film and my history with it here.
As a character actor specializing in cameos Miller tends to get overlooked and since today is Christmas Day it would be easy to overlook the fact that it’s also his birthday. I wanted to give him a special mention. Dick Miller, you’ll always be a star to me.
Somehow, whatever you choose to mention is special, Chris. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent seeing Dick Miller in movies, but it’s been time well spent (as is the time I spend here at your blog). Happy Dick Miller’s birthday and Merry Christmas to you.
Thank you for spending time here. It’s you and the other visitors here who make it special and I hope you had a merry Christmas too.
Love him in all those things you mention. Mr. Futterman holds a special place in my heart. Lovely tribute, CW.
Mr. Futterman holds a special place in my heart too. I can’t say where the first place I saw him was but the first time I saw Gremlins I recognized him as “that guy”.
I don’t know any of the things you mentioned, but happy birthday to him, and happy holidays to the rest of us.
With your knowledge of movies I’m surprised you’ve never seen at least Gremlins or its sequel. The first one is a straightforward creature film while the sequel is all-out brilliant satire. Its parody of a certain real estate billionaire is particularly poignant now given that the same person is now a leading presidential candidate.
And happy holidays to you too!