In Rememberence: Actor Jason Miller

by Jeff Carney

I just received the sad news that Jason Miller who was best known for his Oscar nominated role as Father Karras in "The Exorcist" passed away from a heart attack. He was only 62.

In addition to being a very talented actor with a long list of credits to his name, he was an accomplished playwright, he won a pulitzer prize for "That Championship Season". Besides the Pulitzer he won a Tony award for it as well.

He was also very involved in local theater in Scranton, PA.

He was a married for a time to the daughter of Jackie Gleason. His son is actor Jason Patric (Speed 2, Frankenstein Unbound).

On a personal note, I was fortunate to have directed him in a movie and to have been able to call him a friend who was very supportive of a young filmmaker. A true class act (his big acting perk was being able to bring his dog Shane on location with him) and one of the rare actors who actually had a real screen presence. He will be missed along with some wonderful roles that will never be realized. He had been set to star as Oscar Madison in the upcoming Scranton Theater production of ``The Odd Couple.''

He really was a nice guy. Before I cast him, I had never even met him. But after working together, we shared a love of dogs (both of us had large dogs) and a major devotion to Notre Dame football. A huge fan. Many don't know but he actually studied to be a jesuit priest before the Exorcist.

Besides giving me a lot of good advice there was one personal story that always stuck out that he usually wasn't willing to share as he would get too emotional speaking about it (how during filming of the Exorcist he returned one night to the apartment where he was staying with his family only to find their pet bird dead in its cage - the bird's wings were stretched out and had tacks in each wing which were driven into the cage landing rod for the bird - as if it was crucified. Yet the apartment had been locked). He had a lot of strange incidents like that happen during filming.

Normally you would wonder if it was just part of the publicity (created by some publicist) surrounding the strange problems encountered during filming of the Exorcist, but Jason had tears in his eyes retelling that story 20 some years later over dinner.

We kept in contact after working together and he helped me on a personal matter I pursued. He was someone I could call up and talk to who had just a wealth of personal experience and wonderful stories. And he was a joy and an absolute professional to work with. His one funny quirk that I would kid him about was his insistence on not wearing socks - He would say "Count up the time over your life that you spend putting socks on and off, and washing them. There is so much more I could be doing during with that time!"

A true gentleman whose talents were sadly not used often enough in Hollywood films.

The casting director upstairs just got a outstanding talent and a good man.

God bless - rest in peace my friend.

Jeff
AFPRODUCT@AOL.COM
5/14/01