One of Those Great, Underrated Performances

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Earlier this week I had a hankering, for some reason, to re-watch the Robin Williams classic Good Morning Vietnam. In the film I noticed something that is one of the major downsides of working with a comedic genius like Robin Williams. Let's face it, Good Morning Vietnam is a Robin Williams tour de force. You probably can't even think of anything or anyone else in that movie, despite the fact that there was a great supporting cast that included Forest Whitaker and Bruno Kirby (the latter played the young Clemenza in The Godfather Part II). And that brings me to J.T. Walsh. He had a terrific, underrated performance in the film that was basically lost in the comedic firestorm that was Robin Williams. Walsh played Sergeant Major Philip "Dick" Dickerson, the enlisted man in charge of Armed Forces Radio in Saigon. He was a jerk from head to toe, setting Cronauer (Williams' character -- quick aside, Adrian Cronauer is a real person, but this movie is hardly a representation of anything that really happened to him...other than working for AFRS, that is) up to go to an area held by the enemy in hopes that he wouldn't come back. Dickerson is also one of "those" senior NCOs who loathe the brass. Any time Cronauer called him "sir" he would fly off the handle. "Sir? I work for a living!" That is a common response from NCOs (non-commissioned officers, or senior enlisted personnel) in the military. (It was also used in Stripes by Warren Oates' character, when the incoming recruits said "sir" and he bellowed, "You don't call me 'sir,' I work for a living!"), the anger and hostility that Walsh poured into that role made anyone who's ever been in the military and heard those words cringe with recall. Walsh was only in five scenes (one very briefly, where he received word that the area Cronauer was to go to for field interviews was unsafe and okayed the mission), but he left such a lasting imprint that you almost feared him showing up more. J.T. Walsh played a lot of similar characters in his career, which began late in his life (he started acting at 40) and ended too soon with his death from a heart attack in 1998 at the age of 54. Good Morning Vietnam made him a star -- not in the same way it catapulted Robin Williams, but it showed his ability to play mean, nasty, unsympathetic characters in a special way. Here's Dickerson (J.T. Walsh) chewing out Cronauer (Robin Williams) after a bar brawl: