Powers Boothe

The strike that put him on the map

Powers Boothe took the stage at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in 1980 to accept an Emmy while fellow professionals turned their backs on him. An active actors' strike was underway, and he was the only nominee in the major categories who chose to attend the ceremony. That gesture of defiance or pragmatism defined a career built on hard-edged characters with fairly questionable morals.

He was born on a cotton farm in Snyder, Texas, in 1948. He was the first member of his family to go to college, and he ended up studying theater because he wasn't good at American football. But his deep voice and imposing physique opened the doors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival company before he turned thirty.

His portrayal of Jim Jones in the TV movie Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones earned him the award, which he accepted amid boos. That role required him to shoot mass suicide scenes with hundreds of extras in the middle of the jungle. And critics had to surrender to a performance that avoided excess to focus on the toxic charisma of the cult leader.

It was the birth of a white-collar villain.

The man who knew how to smile before killing

In 1987, he starred in Extreme Prejudice under the direction of Walter Hill. It was a tough, violent action film in which Boothe fit in effortlessly. But general audiences remember him mostly for Tombstone in 1993 and his role as Curly Bill Brocius. His laugh while shooting at nothing became a staple of Western montages.

He had fun playing the bad guy.

In 2004, he joined the series Deadwood to play Cy Tolliver. His character was the sinister counterpart to Al Swearengen, and Boothe gave him a cruel elegance that the audience found mesmerizing. Although the series was abruptly canceled in 2006, the actor always defended that script as the best of his entire professional career.

But his filmography was not only about cowboys. He appeared in Sin City in 2005 as the corrupt Senator Roark, and later joined the Marvel universe in 2012 with The Avengers. In 2015 he returned to that same character for the series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., bringing a gravitas that few supporting actors managed to maintain on screen.

A Silent End

Despite his tough-guy image, he maintained an extremely stable private life by industry standards. He married his college sweetheart in 1969 and stayed with her until the end of his days. He was never fodder for the tabloids, nor did he need big publicity campaigns for casting directors to call him.

Because his mere presence filled the frame.

He died of natural causes in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles on May 14, 2017. He was 68 years old, and his death certificate listed pancreatic cancer as the main cause of death. His remains were taken to his native Texas for burial in the cemetery in the city of Snyder.