To millions of people around the world, John Wayne is, was, and always will be The Duke, but to my friend Dave and I, that distinction went to Charles Grodin, who played Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukis in one of our favorite '80s movies, Midnight Run. The Duke can finally stop running now, as Grodin died Tuesday of bone marrow cancer at his home in Wilton, Connecticut. He was 86 years old.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Grodin was the president and valedictorian of his high school class before he attended the University of Miami, which he left before graduating in order to pursue acting back in Pittsburgh, and later New York City. He studied under greats such as Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen and wasn't even 20 years old when he landed a small, uncredited part in Disney's 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which led to several roles on Broadway and appearances on TV shows such as The Virginian, The F.B.I. and Have Gun — Will Travel.
Grodin reportedly turned down the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate due to the low salary, and though the proved to be a bad decision, he did find his way into another classic the following year, as he played a supporting role as a rather cold obstetrician in the 1968 horror movie Rosemary's Baby. Following another supporting turn in Mike Nichols' adaptation of Catch-22, Grodin finally landed what would become his breakout role -- the lead in Elaine May's romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid opposite Cybill Shepherd. He'd work again with May years later on the ill-fated Ishtar.
Grodin went on to play a couple of sleazy characters in 1976's King Kong and Warren Beatty's 1978 comedy Heaven Can Wait as well as 1981's The Great Muppet Caper, in which he played a jewel thief who was in love with Miss Piggy. But it wasn't until Midnight Run in 1988 that Grodin cemented a place in my heart. He's terrific opposite Robert De Niro as a shady accountant who's arrested for embezzling millions from a Chicago mob boss, only to jump bail and flee. De Niro plays the no-nonsense bounty hunter hired to track him down and bring him back to Los Angeles. Despite their antagonistic relationship, Grodin and De Niro have great comic chemistry together, and the movie still holds up to this day.
Of course, I couldn't fully appreciate the genius of Midnight Run until I was a teenager, and by that time, I'd come to know Grodin as the exasperated dad from the Beethoven movies, which I was a big fan of as a kid. What can I say, I just love dogs, especially when they're driving their owners crazy. I was also a fan of Clifford, which paired him with Martin Short, but we don't need to talk about that one.
In recent years, Grodin played a doctor on FX's Louie and co-starred in the Bernie Madoff miniseries starring Richard Dreyfuss. He also worked with veteran filmmakers such as Barry Levinson (The Humbling), Taylor Hackford (The Comedian) and Noah Baumbach (While We're Young). Though many actors have tried to imitate Grodin's style, none can match his dry, droll delivery, and I'll miss his curmudgeonly sense of humor on the big screen. He was an incredibly likable performer, and I may just have to track down his 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live, because I bet it's hilarious, especially given Grodin's own knack for political satire, which he also honed as a commentator on 60 Minutes II. Additionally, he wrote a column for the New York Daily News for nearly 10 years and authored several books. Grodin's list of accomplishments is clearly long, but to Dave and I, he'll always be The Duke, and sadly, The Duke is dead.
"See you in the next life, Jack."