Bill Paxton

The Boy Who Saw Kennedy Die

Bill Paxton was in the crowd when John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas. He was eight years old, and someone lifted him onto their shoulders so he could see the motorcade pass through Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. A grainy photograph proves it. That Texan kid wasn't desperate for the spotlight, yet he ended up in nearly every key film production in the industry for four decades.

He arrived in Los Angeles in the 1970s with little money and plenty of determination to haul gear. He worked as a set decorator for Roger Corman for miserable pay. There he learned that filmmaking is a trade of carpenters and electricians before it is one of magazine-cover stars. In those hallways he met James Cameron, and that friendship changed his bank account forever.

And the gamble paid off.

Cameron gave him a tiny role as a punk thug in The Terminator in 1984. He had only a couple of lines before Arnold Schwarzenegger threw him into a streetlamp. But Paxton had something other method actors couldn't convey. He looked like an ordinary guy who happened to walk by and ended up caught in a disaster of biblical proportions.

The Man with Three Monsters

He boasted a record nobody else in Hollywood has. He was the only actor killed on screen by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator. In Aliens he played Private Hudson in 1986, and left behind the memorable scream of despair at the end of the game. Audiences connected with him because he was the only one who reacted to the monsters with genuine fear.

During the 1990s his face was everywhere. In 1995 he took part in Apollo 13, and a year later he starred in Twister. The latter film grossed 494 million dollars worldwide. Paxton played a retired meteorologist, but the script had him running from digital tornadoes for much of the runtime.

But massive success didn't dampen his desire to experiment. In 2001, he decided he wanted to tell his own stories and stepped behind the camera. He directed Frailty and took on the role of a father who believes God has commanded him to kill demons. Stephen King said it was one of the best horror films of the decade.

It was his best technical work.

Despite the critics' respect, the film grossed only 17 million dollars in the United States. He didn't care much. Paxton preferred the security of solid projects to the fleeting fame of the red carpet. That's why he accepted the challenge of television when the medium was not yet the refuge of major movie stars.

Polygamy on HBO and the Final Cut

In 2006 he moved to cable television to star in Big Love. He played Bill Henrickson, a man with three wives and seven children who tried to keep his sanity in the suburbs of Utah. The series ran for five seasons and earned him three Golden Globe nominations. It proved he could carry a complex drama without special effects or drooling aliens.

His final working years were intense. In 2014 he appeared in Edge of Tomorrow alongside Tom Cruise, and in 2017 he filmed the series Training Day. Paxton always said his career was like a freight train that never stopped. But the engine failed unexpectedly.

He died on February 25, 2017. A complication following heart surgery claimed his life at the age of 61. His last released film was The Circle, in which he shared the screen with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. The autopsy report stated the cause was a massive stroke that occurred eleven days after his aortic valve surgery.