Remembering Rory: Angus Scrimm 1926-2016

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I have written before that the great heroes of our lives are only heroes because of the stories we tell about them. I believe this because everything we experience in this world comes through our own eyes, and everyone we meet becomes part of our own story. When Red Redding tells the inspiring tale of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, he is really telling us a tale of himself. Of course he is. When we remember family and friends who have left us, that is usually what we are doing—because we are left behind to honor those remarkable people through our own words and deeds.

This is especially true of the people who leave us with great things—things that will live after them. Writers and musicians. Scholars and statesmen. Filmmakers and playwrights. Actors. We live with what they give us, and what they give us lives forever. Great geniuses like Mozart and Einstein have never gone away, even in the face of today’s modern future—especially in the face of it. One could say that our future might not even exist without those guys. The men and women who are fortunate enough to touch the hands of such legendary players—really actually know them as people—are fortunate indeed. It is their stories which keep such legends and legacies alive, and will continue to, so long as human memory remains. As long as we remain.

Angus Scrimm

Angus Scrimm will live forever.

His life spanned nearly a century and he was many things to many people.

He was my friend.

We who knew him best knew a gentle and articulate soul. We who knew him best knew a great writer and a fine actor. We who knew him best are sad in our hearts that he is gone, but are glad that he remained with us as long as he did. The stories of our lives were greatly influenced and affected by not just the artist that he was—but by the man that he was. Few people walked this earth as he did. He had mighty tall shoes to fill, after all.

I first knew the man only by his stage name—and I hope he would forgive me for using that name here to introduce him, but I also know he would understand why. The name “Angus Scrimm” was of, course, something he created as an actor’s pseudonym to introduce his character of The Tall Man to movie audiences in 1979, when the motion picture Phantasm emerged on the scene to become an enormous critical and commercial success. It’s the great work that people will remember him for, along with its many sequels and the body of films he appeared in later. But if you were fortunate enough to befriend him, the stationary upon which you’d receive a letter from the man would always bear the name “Rory Guy.” This was the name he preferred, though he always answered quite cheerfully to “Angus” among friends. This is just one indicator of the generous and friendly soul Rory possessed, and the glad heart with which he embraced his horror celebrity.

Lawrence Rory Guy was born in 1926, and he was able to see many changes in the post modern world. In fact, his life spanned nearly the entire history of the film business itself, from its humble celluloid beginnings, to its most current digital incarnation. Like an immortal coming down through the ages, Rory had a perspective that few who remain alive could ever dream of. He once told me that a constant he’d observed in his long life was the certainty of change, which was only another aspect of human nature, which was how he partially saw the world—as an epicenter of humanity and togetherness, constantly evolving from place to place. And yet, throughout his travels, Rory remained a man of his day—a refined, polite gentlemen of a much older world who believed in kindness and respect and who used words carefully and with great skill.

Angus Scrimm

In fact, Rory began his career as a writer and a journalist. Along the way, he even landed a gig composing liner notes for record albums—a gig which lasted decades, even after his career as an actor began, and for which he picked up not one, but two Grammy awards. Those were for his notes on the classic film scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, by the way. Rory also wrote the liner notes for “Meet the Beatles.” He was not only there to see that great change in the world, but he actually participated in it—and was so respected in his field that the voluminous number of complementary albums sent to him free by the record companies eventually numbered so many thousands that Rory had to rent a large warehouse to store them all in. I once asked him how many old school vinyl platters he still had in storage and he smiled and rumpled his nose playfully and said, “Oh, Stephen, the number is astronomical. I shall have to get rid of them all one day, I think.” What irony that in today’s nostalgia-obsessed age, his vintage collection would have been priceless!

That said, even in the modern eras of CDs and digital downloads, Rory remained an avid collector and connoisseur of music. When I first met him, I arranged a tour around my city of Austin with some friends, who planned to escort him to all the awesome used record stores in town. The punchline was our second stop at a place called Cheapos—which, in its day, was the largest used record store in Texas—where Rory was so enamored of the vast wares, that he descended into the rows and rows of music and never wanted to leave. And so the tour ended right there. We were in that store for hours.

That was in April of 2000, when I first became friends with Rory Guy.

I had organized the first-ever Phantasm film festival at The Alamo Drafthouse, and he was our honored guest, along with Rory’s legendary co-star Reggie Bannister and Don Coscarelli, the creator of the films. Rory co-hosted our screenings with a heroic effort—and I say “heroic” because in those days, everything we did with the Alamo was very punk rock and late-night oriented. Our shows would start at midnight and sometimes go ‘till dawn. Though it was way past his bedtime, Rory arrived with full guns blazing, and he even sampled Austin’s own awesome brand of wake-me-up—the infamous and storied Shiner Bock Beer, a bottle of which he held aloft during his introduction of the first film. I’ll never forget his nod to Don’s wife from the stage, and his amazing words: “I wasn’t exactly sure about a trip to Texas at first, but when I spoke to Shelly Coscarelli, she insisted that Austin was an exciting and exhilarating nexus of intellectual ferment.”

Oh, Rory.

Nobody put together words quite like he did.

We who were fortunate enough to be at Rory’s side as his caretakers through that amazing weekend met a man who was so far beyond the unique and terrifying persona he portrayed on screen—and all of us fell deeply in love with him. One of my best friends, to whom whom I assigned security detail, was so taken with Rory’s kindness and fatherly nature that he later told me something I will also never forget: “If humanity were to take a lesson from that man, there would be no war, no suffering, no unhappiness in the world. We would all be at peace forever.”

Angus Scrimm

Strong words. True words. Rory walked it like he talked it.

He had many amazing friends and they will all tell many amazing stories about him. Many knew him much more intimately than I. After all, Rory lived in California and I in Texas. But he was always a significant part of my life. In his final days, he even contributed to my recovery from a terrible injury. I spoke with him then, and he was filled with his usual good humor and sharpness. I hardly would have believed he’d soon be gone. And now that he is, it would be easy for me to say that from now on, my world will be poorer. But that would not be true.

I will explain why, by sharing with you a story of my life.

My favorite memory of Rory—Angus Scrimm—the man, the actor, my friend.

This was in 2005, just after the launch party for Masters of Horror, upon which I served as a writer. In fact, Don Coscarelli and I had written his episode together, in collaboration with the great Joe Lansdale—which was already a dream for me. These were major players and true cult heroes. It was the honor of my life to work alongside them. But even better was the fact that we had created a role expressly for Angus Scrimm in the film—a role which we’d even solicited his input and approval on, during the writing. That night at the launch party, I saw Rory for the first time since that story meeting four months earlier, and he seemed truly excited to be there, though a bit overwhelmed. Rory was always somewhat daunted by such functions, not simply because he was an older gentleman, but because he was just not one for making a big fuss over things. It always struck me as more that a bit telling that never once did he charge a fan for his autograph at conventions, nor did he ever take advantage of his considerable horror film fame in other ways. (I’m here to tell you, there were Tall Man groupies—but Rory was from another school of thought and action. A more honorable school.)

At the party, I handed Rory our script for the first time, and at around midnight or so, I got a call at my hotel from him. He’d stayed up late to read what we had written. He was stunned. And not just because we’d given him so much dialogue to play with—almost more than anyone else in the script—but because he truly thought the work was great. He said the screenplay was “absolute perfection.”  Later he told me that the produced version of Incident on and off a Mountain Road was a “perfect film.” Rory was not a man who issued such praise lightly. In fact, he’d always been unsparingly critical of my own writing. And so the feeling of pride and accomplishment that went through me is not something I can easily convey—except to say that I will keep with me always. It was his gift to me that will never die.

And there is my Shawshank story. There is Rory’s own contribution to my legacy and one of my greatest personal connections to eternity. Our work together. Our friendship. There are hundreds of other stories from hundreds of other people. Listen to them. They are all unique and special. Yet they will all tell you the same thing. Rory Guy—Angus Scrimm—was one of the finest, most gifted men of history. We, every single one of us, were blessed by his presence here. And if you find yourself remembering him—remembering anyone you loved who has left —by way of the stories of your own life, just remember: That is exactly how it should be and exactly how they wanted it.

I know for a fact that is how Rory wanted it.

He wanted you to know how important you were to him. He wanted to be a part of your story. Of course he did. Those of us who reach out to make art of any kind are pushing the entire world towards a deeper understanding. This is how we live on. In the heads and hearts of those we touch with our words and images. But there are still others who transcend what they do to become miraculous souls, in and of themselves. And they’re right here still. In our own hearts. Smiling.

We’re smiling back at you, Rory.

We’re remembering you.

And we always will.

Stephen Romano

January 13, 2016

Angus Scrimm

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