"You play a good game, boy, but the game is finished. Now you die."
American actor (1926-2016). He was born Lawrence Rory Guy in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Drama.
His first jobs were in journalism -- he wrote for TV Guide, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Cinema Magazine, and others. He also got a job writing liner notes for Capitol Records, including notes for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat "King" Cole, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, and Liza Minelli, as well as for classical performers like Arthur Rubinstein and Itzhak Perlman. He won a Grammy Award in 1975 for his liner notes for "Korngold: The Classic Erich Wolfgang Korngold," an album released in 1974.
He started acting in films in the early '70s, playing supporting roles in minor, low-budget films, but he hit the role that'd define him for the rest of his life in 1979 as the Tall Man in Don Coscarelli's horror film "Phantasm." Though he'd previously acted under his own name, he decided to use a pseudonym he'd used in college -- Angus Scrimm -- Angus for a relative, and "scrim," a theater term for a stage curtain. (And such a perfect name for a horror legend, isn't it? "Angus" to start things off a bit odd, and then "Scrimm" landing midway between Grim and Scream...)
Scrimm already stood 6' 4", but to look even taller, he wore platform shoes and suits that were a few sizes too small. The other key elements of his portrayal -- which served to transform him from an elderly, friendly, grandfatherly figure into a terrifying undertaker from another dimension -- were his dangerously raised eyebrow and the deep, gravelly voice he used.
"Phantasm" was a weird-as-hell movie -- part horror show, part surreal nightmare -- Coscarelli had actually gotten the idea for the film from a dream. But Scrimm was a big reason why it was so successful. And his screen presence meant he started getting a lot more film work. These weren't A-list films -- many of them didn't even crack D-list, honestly -- but that's mostly the way it goes for anyone who hits it big as a horror star. It's hard to get cast as a romantic lead in a big Hollywood blockbuster when you're best known for butchering teenagers in slasher movies.
So in addition to the various "Phantasm" sequels, Scrimm showed up in movies like "Chopping Mall," "Subspecies," "Mindwarp," "Wishmaster" (as the narrator), "John Dies at the End," and "Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story." He also showed up in a few TV shows and played a recurring character on the spy series "Alias."
Scrimm died of prostate cancer early in 2016 at the age of 89 in Tarzana, California.
"BOOOYYY!"
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