The actor also appeared in three Paul Thomas Anderson dramas and played Nixon in an acclaimed one-man play and Robert Altman film.
Philip Baker Hall, the brilliant character actor who was a favorite of director Paul Thomas Anderson, has died, He was 90.
He is best remembered for bringing library investigator Lt. Bookman to a 1991 episode of Seinfeld.
Hall died Sunday night at his home in Glendale, his daughter Anna confirmed.
With his world-weary eyes, Hall looked as if he had seen it all and was using that knowledge to go forward.
The actor racked up more than 100 television appearances during his five-decade career, and one of his more endearing characters of late was Walt Kleezak, the cantankerous neighbor who befriends the young Luke Dunphy (Nolan Gould) on Modern Family.
In October 2017, Hall starred alongside Ellen Geer on episode of HBO’s Room 104.
Hall and Paul Thomas Anderson first met on a PBS film, when the director was working as a production assistant. “He was a fan of my work, so how could I not like him?” Hall later said.
Anderson then crafted a script for a short, which was titled Cigarettes & Coffee, starring Hall.
For his debut feature, Hard Eight (1996), Anderson showcased Hall as Sydney, a vet card hustler who teaches the tricks of his trade to younger protege (John C. Reilly).
In Anderson’s Boogie Nights, the 1997 drama about the porn industry, Hall played adult film distributor Floyd Gondolli.
His poignant performance as Jimmy Gator, a children’s game show host dying of cancer, was one of the standouts of the director’s acclaimed drama Magnolia (1999).
Hall’s most recognizable role came in the Seinfeld episode “The Library.” A dogged detective with a trench coat, his Joe Bookman relentlessly pursued Jerry in search of a library book — Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer— that was more than 20 years overdue. Hall’s take-no-prisoners delivery lent the perfect sense of absurdity to the situation.
“You’d better not screw up again, Seinfeld, because if you do, I’ll be all over you like a pit bull on a poodle,” Bookman warns Jerry. The performance endeared the actor to the legion of Seinfeld fans.
As Hall said in 2014, “It’s been over 20 years since we shot that episode, and I still can’t go out in public for long before someone says, ‘My God, it’s Bookman!’ Or: ‘Are you Bookman? I returned that library book, I swear!’ It’s not just in New York or L.A.; it’s happened in a mall in the Midwest or even other countries where they air the show. The guy made an impression.”
The performance also made an impression on Hollywood. “It’s funny, Lt. Bookman was one of the last roles I ever auditioned for, simply because so many doors opened up after the show,” Hall said.
“I remember that Jerry had a hard time keeping a straight face during the reading. Usually, when you read for things, no one lets on too much, even if they like you. But people were fighting to control their laughter, so when I called my wife afterward, I told her, ‘There’s no such thing as a sure thing … but I’m pretty sure I got this part.”
Bookman made a return visit on the fabled sitcom’s finale that aired May 14, 1998.
Philip Baker Hall was born on September 10, 1931, in Toledo, Ohio. He attended the University of Toledo and enlisted in the military, serving as an Army translator in Germany. Hall always had a penchant for performing but initially was hesitant to pursue such a risky career. Instead, after leaving the Army, he returned to Ohio and worked as a radio announcer and high school teacher.
Hall was 30 when his wife encouraged him to follow his dream. They moved to New York in 1961, and for the next decade, he built a career on the stage in such notable productions as The Skin of Our Teeth, featuring Helen Hayes, and J.B., starring John Cazale.
Hall’s film debut came in 1970 with an uncredited role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point.
In 1975, Hall relocated to Los Angeles and built TV career, making comedy (Good Times, M*A*S*H, Cheers, Empty Nest), drama (The Waltons, L.A. Law, Chicago Hope, West Wing), mystery (Quincy M.E., Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, Monk), action (Man From Atlantis, Emergency!, Miami Vice, T.J. Hooker, Cagney & Lacey, Dark Justice) and voiceover (Baby Blues, The Life and Times of Tim, BoJack Horseman).
The dependable Hall joined Falcon Crest for its ninth and final season in 1989 as Ed Meyers, the attorney for Michael Sharpe (Gregory Harrison), and had recurring roles as a doctor on Family Ties, Everwood and Curb Your Enthusiasm and as a judge on Civil Wars and The Practice.
Secret Honor bowed at the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre in 1983 and went on to successful runs in Boston, Washington and off-Broadway, where it earned Hall a Drama Desk nomination.
In a 1988 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hall said he originally thought the Nixon monologues were too lengthy and turned down the role. “Then one night I got a vision of how to do it and called Bob [Harders, the director],” he said. “The thing is, the character’s got like six ideas going on all the time, and he can’t sort them out. He’s trying to say a number of things at the same time — many, if not all, that are contradictory. That was the hook.”
Hall’s filmography included Midnight Run (1988), Say Anything (1989), Ghostbusters II (1989), Air Force One (1997), Truman Show (1998), Rush Hour (1998), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), In GoodCompany (2005), Duck (2005), 50/50 (2011), Argo (2012) and The Last Word (2017).
Hall was married twice and had four daughters, Anna, Adella, Trisha and Darcy — two from his first marriage to Dianne Lewis and two with his second wife, Holly; his kids ranged in age from 16 to 61.
