Actors Spotlight: Bud Cort

Actors Spotlight: Bud Cort

Psychiatrist: Tell me, Harold, how many of these, eh, *suicides* have you performed?
Harold: An accurate number would be difficult to gauge.
Psychiatrist: Well, just give me a rough estimate.
Harold: A rough estimate? I'd say fifteen.
Psychiatrist: Fifteen?
Harold: That's a rough estimate.
Psychiatrist: Were they all done for your mother's benefit?
Harold: No. No, I would not say "benefit."

That's the role Bud Cort is most known for, Harold of 'Harold and Maude' (1971). That kid shoulda been on track for super-duperness after that role. If he hadn't gotten the crap kicked out of him by some overzealous cosmic greaser, he could've cracked the golden trifecta of that era (Pacino, DeNiro & Hoffman). But he had the shittiest luck this side of Christopher Reeve.
He wanted the part of McMurphy in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975), but was only offered the part of B-B-B-Billy B-B-B-Bibbitt. He got to thinkin' that he didn't want to play another crazy (a'la Harold) as he didn't want to be typecast as a nut. I don't know about that Bud, you're off the hook like a 600 lb. Marlin.

In '79 things got bad. Some unknown jackhole had stalled their car on an almost deserted L.A. freeway late at night. They abandoned their car in the left lane without turning on their hazard lights.
Bud Cort had just left a Frank Sinatra concert and was cruising down that freeway. He did not see the car until seconds before impact. A short while before, he had been groovin' to ole 'Blue Eyes'. Now he a had broken arm and leg, a concussion and a fractured skull. His face was severely lacerated, his lower lip cut and hanging by a thread.

In 1984, he told People magazine, "When I got up the nerve to look at myself in a mirror for the first time, I screamed. I looked like a monster, with my forehead, face and lip all sewn up. I wanted to die.". He had several sessions of plastic surgery but, by his account he remains unsatisfied by the results.

The previous year Mark Hamill had sailed through the windshield of his BMW. But, being a key player in a fairly large franchise, the powers that be allowed him to complete a certain trilogy. Bud had no such cushion to fall back on and was decimated by hospital and court costs. Thus be the tragic tale of Bud Cort, right? Nope. Sit back down.

Cort managed to continue in film, usually in very small roles, and continues to appear in current movies. Albeit, again in fairly small roles, but this just adds to the momentum of the cult-nut-frenzy he established with 'Harold and Maude'. Keep an eye out for him as the portly man who helps ease Pollock into the art world's 'inner circles' in 'Pollock' (2000) and the awesome accountant in 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' (2004)

I like Bud Cort.