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Darwin Joston

F. Darwin Solomon (December 9, 1937- June 1, 1998) was an American actor known professionally as Darwin Joston (sometimes credited as Darwin Jostin during the early years of his career). Joston appeared in many popular television shows during the 1960s, early 1970s, and mid-1980s, but he is best known for his performances in independent films that later achieved cult status, particularly Assault on Precinct 13.

Biography

Early life & acting career

Joston was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He later moved to Los Angeles, California when he began his acting career. From the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, Joston worked primarily in television and was often cast as a soldier. He appeared in a number of popular series including Lassie (in which he had a recurring role), The Virginian, The Rat Patrol, Ironside, The Rookies, and McCloud. He also had guest roles in episodes of the short-lived series Longstreet and Ghost Story/Circle of Fear.

Joston appeared in two genre films during this phase of his acting career. The first of his early film roles was that of Billy-Joe, the psychopathic, mother-obsessed, sexually-warped Confederate soldier in the 1971 western-themed, grindhouse exploitation film, Cain's Cutthroats. Joston's second film was the low-budget 1975 horror movie, Rattlers, in which he played a soldier who is killed by a horde of rattlesnakes.

Assault on Precinct 13

Joston is known for his iconic portrayal of Napoleon Wilson, the sardonic, shotgun-toting, anti-hero in Assault on Precinct 13, John Carpenter's 1976, Howard Hawks-inspired, action film. Carpenter has said that he wrote the Napoleon Wilson role with Joston in mind and imbued the character with some of Joston's personality traits. When Carpenter was writing the screenplay for Assault on Precinct 13, he and Joston both lived in the same Hollywood Hills apartment building and became friends. Having gotten to know Joston and his dark sense of humor, Carpenter felt that his neighbor would make an interesting anti-hero.

This was Joston's largest role, and it is considered to have been his best. Joston's singular performance not only conveys Wilson's stoic toughness, but also emphasizes his irreverent, ironic sense of humor and slowly reveals the character's unexpected capacities for loyalty and tenderness, thereby adding emotional depth and humanity to what otherwise could have been a stereotypical action-hero role. Moreover, Joston's performance has been repeatedly singled out as the film's best and is often cited as one of the primary reasons for Assault on Precinct 13's continued audience appeal.

Eraserhead, The Fog, Gunmen's Blues

During the five years following the release of Assault on Precinct 13, Joston appeared in three more independent films. He played Paul, the beleaguered pencil-factory clerk, in David Lynch's classic 1977 cult film, Eraserhead. He worked with Carpenter again in the 1980 horror film, The Fog, playing the coroner, Dr. Phibes. Shortly afterward, Eric Red, then a young film-maker and a fan of Joston's performance in Assault on Precinct 13, cast Joston in the lead role of the world-weary hitman in Red's 1981 short film, Gunmen's Blues.

Joston also worked on the transportation crews of two 1978 movies, The Buddy Holly Story and Ruby and Oswald.

Later career

After 1981, Joston's acting career became more sporadic. He got relatively few roles in the early 1980s but worked frequently in 1985 (half of his 1980s acting credits date to this year). He then quit acting in 1986, when he was 48 years old, and spent the rest of his career working on film and television transportation crews until his retirement from the entertainment industry in the mid-1990s.

In 1982, when Carpenter was scheduled to direct the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel Firestarter, Joston was considered for the role of John Rainbird, the Native-American assassin; but after Universal Pictures executives fired Carpenter from the project (following the commercial failure of The Thing) and replaced him with Mark L. Lester, the role of Rainbird was given to George C. Scott.

Joston's last film role was in the 1982 B-movie (and Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite) Time Walker (also known as Being from Another Planet), in which he appeared with his Assault on Precinct 13 co-star, Austin Stoker; and the last two years of his acting career were spent playing guest roles in television series such as Hill Street Blues, Spenser: For Hire, Knight Rider, and Remington Steele. He also performed as a voice actor in Showtime's short-lived, 1985 animated series Washingtoon. His final role was in a 1986 episode of the comedy series ALF.

From 1986 until 1995, he worked as a driver, driver captain, or transportation captain (sometimes with his son, Shawn Solomon) on various television productions and on films such as Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), La Bamba (1987), Lynch's 1990 film Wild at Heart, and The American President (1995).

Death

After Joston retired, he moved back to Winston-Salem, where, shortly thereafter, he died of leukemia on June 1, 1998. Within several months of his death, Joston's friends and family established the F. Darwin Solomon Endowment at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem to commemorate his life and career.

Many, including director Quentin Tarantino, now consider Joston to have been a vastly underrated actor whose talent was not duly recognized during his lifetime.