By Nathaniel R
In all the hoopla and festivities surrounding Oscar night, we neglected to note the passing of an actor who has a real pop culture fixture since the 1980s. Bill Paxton died of complications in surgery the day before the Oscars. He was currently leading the TV adaptation of Training Day in the former Denzel Washington role (they had reversed the race dynamics of the leads for the series). CBS says the role will not be recast though they have not yet announced if there will be a second season.
Paxton's first credited feature role was as "Soldier" in the comedy Stripes (1981) but most people first noticed him in the mid 80s in the films of James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow...
He was the mohawked punk in the beginning of The Terminator (1984) who picks the wrong naked man to harass and of course he gained major pop culture cred as the highly stressed Private Hudson in Aliens (1986), who everyone quoted a lot in the 1980s...
GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!
FINGER LICKIN' GOOD.
He won the Saturn Award for Private Hudson and later co-starred in yet more Cameron features (Titanic, True Lies). He was also memorable as the terrifying Severen in Kathryn Bigelow's potent vampire flick Near Dark (1987).
But that was just the beginning. He'd later go on to multiple Globe nods for headlining the polygamy drama Big Love on HBO and he was a regular fixture in action films (Haywire, 2 Guns, Vertical Limit, Navy Seals, Tombstone, Twister) and genre fare (Agents of SHIELD, Edge of Tomorrow, etcetera)
What's your fondest memory of Paxton?