This past weekend came the sad and tragic news that comedic titan Fred Willard passed away at the age of 86. By all accounts, however, Willard went peacefully in his home after succumbing to natural causes. Rest In Peace Mr. Willard, your work will live on!
Believe it or not, Willard amassed a stunning 313 big and small screen credits since 1966. The hilarious Ohio native got his start on the tube in 1966 via the western series Pistols n' Petticoats before making his big-screen debut one year later in Teenage Mother. The rest, as they say, is history. So in honor of his lasting legacy, here are Fred Willard's 10 Best Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes!
10 Silver Streak (1976) 80%
Back in their heyday, few comedic pairings exhibited the combustible chemistry between Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. In Arthur Hiller's Silver Streak, the two deal with a potential murder aboard the titular train traveling from L.A. to Chicago!
When staid book editor George (Wilder) thinks he witnesses a murder onboard the Silver Streak train, he sets out to find the culprit. He meets a thief named Grover (Pryor) along the way who helps solve the crime, as well as Jerry Jarvis (Willard), a passenger on the ill-fated locomotive.
9 Model Shop (1969) 83%
Despite going uncredited as a meager Gas Station Attendant, Willard got to work with the great French auteur Jaques Demy in the actor's second feature film.
Model Shop takes its cues from The Graduate, with the plot concerning George Matthews (Gary Lockwood), a wayward young man in the throes of a tumultuous love affair with a sexy French divorcee named Lola (Anouk Aimee). Set in 1969 Los Angeles, Quentin Tarantino has publicly praised the film for influencing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
8 A Mighty Wind (2003) 87%
The one male constant in all of Christopher Guest's hysterically deadpan mockumentaries is Fred Willard. It's truly difficult to imagine Guest making another without him!
That said, who can forget Willard's ridiculous character in A Mighty Wind, in which his blond-spiky-haired music executive tries to turn old-timey folk music into a new generational cash-cow? Yeah, nobody! The movie about a folk-music reunion and its eccentric participants proved that you can poke fun at a subject while still moving the audience emotionally.
7 Salem's Lot (1979) 88%
In Tobe Hooper's underrated miniseries Salem's Lot, a quaint New England hamlet is ravaged by a sect of bloodsucking vampires. Unfortunately, Willard's real-estate agent Larry Crockett couldn't escape the lethal fangs!
Based on the classic Stephen King novel, the story tracks an ancient vampire named Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder) who is sent to Salem's Lot, Maine by a cryptic new inhabitant named Richard Straker (James Mason). Together, Straker and Barlow look to overrun the town and repopulate it with a race of blood-thirsty ghouls.
6 Roxanne (1987) 90%
Adapted by Steve Martin from the Edmond Rostand stage-play, Roxanne is a lighthearted, Pinocchio-like fairytale in which a long-nosed poet vicariously woos a beautiful woman with his words. If only...
Despite his awesome wit and genial demeanor, small-town Fire Chief C.D. Bales (Martin) has a gigantic nose that repels most women. When Bales meets the ravishing Roxanne (Daryl Hannah) next door, he recruits the inarticulate fireman Chris (Rick Rossovich) to communicate with her using Bales' own romantic diction. Willard plays Mayor Deebs in the film, lending solid support alongside Shelley Duval and Damon Wayans.
5 Waiting For Guffman (1996) 91%
In Christopher Guest's inaugural mockumentary, Waiting For Guffman, Willard nearly steals the show as a cocky travel agent who moonlights as an amateur community theater thespian. Check out the man's windbreaker!
To celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of Blaine, Missouri, far-off-Broadway director Corky St. James (Guest) organizes a community theater production. Ron (Willard) and Sheila Albertson (Catherine O'Hara) have the most experience but tend to be upstaged by local dentist Alan (Eugene Levy) and Dairy Queen waitress Libby (Parker Posey).
4 Best In Show (2000) 94%
Willard owns some of the most waggish one-liners in all of Christopher Guest's hilarious mockumentaries, but as the official announcer of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, he takes the witty barbs to a whole new level!
Indeed, as the insolent voice of Buck Laughlin, the juvenile sportscaster narrating the dog competition in Best In Show, Willard has rarely been better. The way he interacts with his stuffy British partner Trevor Beckwith (Jim Piddock) is a comedic sight to behold.
3 This Is Spinal Tap (1984) 95%
Willard's experience with the mockumentary form that would become synonymous with Christopher Guest began in 1984 with This Is Spinal Tap, directed by the great Rob Reiner. Guest took the form, and his friend to boot, and ran with it to the tune of five feature films.
The trailblazing original centers on the rocking exploits of legendary (and fictitious) heavy-metal band Spinal Tap, whose dim egomaniacal members haven't a shred of self-awareness. As per usual, Willard commands the screen as Air Force Lt. Bob Hookstratten in a role that was largely improvisational.
2 WALL-E (2008) 95%
At the time of WALL-E's release in 2008, Willard bore the distinction of being the only live-action character given lines of dialog in a Pixar film. What a cool honor!
In WALL-E, a lonely waste-collecting robot in the future is dispatched to clean up the massive amounts of pollution left on Earth. Distracted by Earthly gadgets and his pet cockroach, WALL-E's life is upended when he meets and falls in love with EVE, a recon-bot sent to survey the planet's habitability. Willard plays Shelby Forthright, the cheery CEO of the Buy-N-Large corporation who concocts the mission to clean up Earth.
1 Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg (2016) 100%
For all you trivia buffs, Robert Klein performed the very first HBO stand-up special back in 1975. In the reverential documentary Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg, a whos-who of top-tier comedians pay homage to the trailblazing stand-up.
Willard joins the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Don Rickles, Richard Lewis, and more for the celebratory retrospective on Klein's 40-year career. If he could, Klein would surely return the favor for Willard when a documentary on his onscreen career is documented.
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