Paul Gleason made officious bullies convincing through brusque delivery and an utter lack of doubt. We value the force he brought to these parts, even when the writing gave him little beyond another opportunity to be wrong.
Fi1m perspective
Paul Gleason’s screen bullies have little sense of humour and no shortage of confidence. His brusque delivery makes their expectation of obedience convincing, even when their judgement is poor. We rate him as a forceful supporting actor, particularly useful when a film needs someone to get in the hero’s way. He took these men seriously enough for their bad temper to matter. The difficulty came when a script expected repeated mistakes to remain funny.
Trading Places (1983) gave him a major film role as Clarence Beeks, the Duke brothers’ ruthless fixer. In John Landis’s comedy, that nastiness has a useful place alongside Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd: Gleason need not be agreeable for the company to be enjoyable. We recommend the film, with patience for a middle stretch that needs tightening. The Breakfast Club (1985), with Gleason as the disciplinarian vice-principal Richard Vernon, made the authority figure still more central to his screen identity. The two roles helped establish the kind of work that followed.
In John McTiernan’s Die Hard (1988), the limits of that casting become clear. Gleason gives deputy police chief Dwayne Robinson force, but the script keeps making him wrong so that McClane can look sensible. We grew irritated whenever this foolish police business held up the siege; the central contest was tense enough without another demonstration of official incompetence. The film remains an easy recommendation for its clear staging and the contrast between Bruce Willis’s vulnerability and Alan Rickman’s composure. But Robinson’s repeated errors make the authorities less convincing, and Gleason cannot supply the character with intelligence the writing has withheld.
After the mid-1980s successes, similar unsympathetic roles became a restriction. The return as Vernon in a 2001 parody makes the persistence of that casting plain. We would have welcomed more parts that asked something beyond bad temper of him, though the conviction he brought to it is easy to value. Start with Trading Places, allowing for that leisurely middle stretch; it gives his unpleasant company an evening worth spending.
Biography
Paul Gleason (1939–2006) was an American character actor known for portraying authority figures and antagonists. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he attended Florida State University and trained at the Actors Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg. He began his career with small roles in films and television in the 1960s, including a recurring part as Dr David Thornton on the soap opera All My Children.
Gleason gained wider recognition for his supporting roles in 1980s comedies and action films. He played Clarence Beeks in Trading Places (1983), Principal Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club (1985) and Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson in Die Hard (1988). He appeared in numerous television series including The A-Team, Seinfeld, Friends and Malcolm in the Middle, and reprised the Vernon character in Not Another Teen Movie (2001). Gleason died in Burbank, California, from mesothelioma.
