Charles Tyner

Charles Tyner had been acting on Broadway for only two years when, in 1959, he worked with Paul Newman in Tennessee Williams's "Sweet Bird of Youth." For the next decade, Tynan struggled to break into the film industry, taking on measly uncredited parts in movies like "Fail-Safe" and "Lilith." But his friendship with the movie star proved to be fortuitous when Newman wrangled him into the role of good ol' boy Boss Higgs in the counterculture touchstone "Cool Hand Luke." Tynan became a prolific character actor, particularly in Westerns such as "The Stalking Moon," with Gregory Peck; "The Cowboys," with John Wayne; and "The Outlaw Josey Wales," with Clint Eastwood. In Hal Ashby's cult classic "Harold and Maude," Tyner was given a memorable bit as Bud Cort's jingoistic uncle. And his Southern accent never got a reprieve; he whistled Dixie in "The Reivers," from a book by William Faulkner, and was on the other side of the law from Boss Higgs in "The Longest Yard," a galumphing football comedy in which Tyner played a prisoner.