So, back by popular demand, GottaLetitgo’s Heroes.

Very few of you probably know who Tom Villard is by name but you probably recognize his face. He was kind of a goofy guy, real deep funny voice. He played mostly supporting roles but had a couple of starring roles. He played secondary characters in movies like “Heartbreak Ridge” with Clint Eastwood, “One Crazy Summer”, “Grease 2”, “My Girl”, and a handful of others. He was also the star of a TV show called “We’ve Got it Maid”, where he played a wacky inventor who shared an apartment with future Police Academy star Matt McCoy and a hot maid played by 80’s sex symbol Terri Copley. One of Villard’s last big movie roles was as a villain in a crappy teen horror movie called “Popcorn”.

Okay, so why is he a GLG Hero? Back in the early 90’s, I didn’t really think about Tom Villard too much. He was just another one of those disposable 1980’s movie actors who just kind of ran out of roles as time went on. Then one day, I was watching “Entertainment Tonight” and they were doing an interview with someone who I didn’t immediately recognize by face but whose voice I recognized immediately. The actor being interviewed had AIDS. The interview was about how Villard was about to play a small role in one of the “Star Trek” series. The actor was trying to keep high spirits and said he just wanted to keep working. As I said, because of the effects of the disease had made him almost unrecognizable and his nose had a bright red sore on it that just kind of sticks in my mind so many years later. Don’t know why that interview made such an impact on me but it did.

Villard played a few more roles, including a bit part in a Pauly Shore movie “In the Army Now” and come to find out, he was mostly doing the movies because he didn’t have a lot of money and needed to keep his insurance to pay for his AIDS medications. People in Hollywood like Shore were really just trying to lend a helping hand, which I thought was a really sweet gesture. Villard ultimately succumbed to AIDS related complications but I remember reading an article about him shortly before he passed saying he had met someone during his treatments or something who also had the disease and that they had quickly developed a really special relationship. A little bit of happiness for an actor who died way too young, at the age of 40.

Not a great actor by any stretch but a seemingly nice guy who played in a lot of movies I grew up with. Villard was one of way too many actors, producers, writers, makeup artists, and other Hollywood figures who passed from the disease in the early 90’s, mostly unheralded and unsung. But Villard's story, his persistence to keep working, his will to survive, does deserve to be told.

nice tribute glg...

have a happy father's day daddy

emm said:

Sweet story, but this is a sympathy entry.

It lowers the whole quality of what the GLG Hero threads are about, what they have come to mean for all the little boys and girls out there who are themselves destined to live un-heroic lives.

Think of the unheroic kids out there.

2the9s said:

Muse2NOPharaoh said:

2the9s said:

GLG's Heroes is intended, for the most part, to celebrate those actors who never got recognition or who people have forgotten about. Tom Villard, without his tragic end, would have still been an entry. He was a mediocre actor who didn't really play in any roles that people remember but I think a lot of people remember him in the back of their mind, if nothing else for his peculiar voice. I know this was a maudlin entry but I have always wanted to tell this guy's story because I just don't think that many people even knew he died. The great thing though is that he will live on in his movies and every time "one Crazy Summer" comes on and you see him playing the impossible role of Bobcat Goldthwait's fraternal twin, it'll be something to think about.

yay!...the return of the "heroes" threads.


ok....Shavar "Dudley" Ross has be next. I'm sure we're not the only fans here.