Andrew Robinson, Dirty Harry, 1971
And to go with this, here’s all the Robinson trivia from the movie’s IMDB entry:
Andy Robinson’s film debut.
One of the reasons why Don Siegel cast Andrew Robinson as Scorpio was because he wanted someone “with a face like a choirboy”.
Andrew Robinson was cast at the behest of Clint Eastwood who had seen him in a Broadway production of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot”. Eastwood then convinced director Don Siegel that Robinson had the right unnerving characteristics to make an effective Scorpio.
Andrew Robinson created a backstory for Scorpio which involved him being drafted into the Vietnam War, and seeing unspeakable horrors. When he returned home to the United States, he found himself a figure of hate, and his war experiences, combined with the people’s treatment of soldiers, caused him to go insane.
In real life, Andrew Robinson is a pacifist who despises guns. In the early days of principal photography, Robinson would flinch violently every time he fired. Director Don Siegel was forced to shut down production for a time and sent Robinson to a school to learn to fire a gun convincingly. However, he still blinks noticeably when he shoots. Robinson was also squeamish about filming the scene where he verbally and physically abuses several schoolchildren, and the scene where he racially insults the man he pays to beat him up (Raymond Johnson).
When Harry finally meets Scorpio in Mount Davidson Park, Scorpio orders him to show his gun with his left hand. Harry pulls it from his holster and Scorpio ad-libs the line, “My, that’s a big one!” This line caused the crew to crack up and the scene had to be re-shot, but the line stayed.
Andrew Robinson who played Scorpio, claims to have ad-libbed the line “Hubba, hubba, hubba, pig bastard” while taunting Harry on the phone.
When Scorpio is running away from Callahan at the end of the film, he spots a young boy sitting near a pond, and grabs him as a hostage. The kid is played by Andrew Robinson’s real-life stepson Stephen Zacks.
After the film was released, actor Andrew Robinson received several death threats, and had to get an unlisted phone number.
I DIDN’T KNOW MOST OF THIS AND ALL OF IT IS SO IMPORTANT HOLY SHIT I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!
I wonder how many backstories he’s made up for all the characters he’s played. That’s so precious. Quite awful to know he got death threats however.
He’s so cute!!! I love how invested he gets in his characters, it’s probably how he acts now that I think of it. He doesn’t get a lot from the script so he comes up with an entire story for them!!! I love that!!!
And then in the case of “A Stitch In Time” he wrote an entire goddamn book about Garak just to figure out who he was! I love him so much!
And on the topic of him getting death threats, that makes me sO MAD OMg I seriously want to physically fistfight everyone on earth who is mean to Andy
The thing with the bus and the kids–after he did that scene he made sure to ask them all if they were okay. He was really concerned. <3 He’s so kind and sweet.
GOD I’M GONNA CRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE’S LITERALLY THE SWEETEST MAN ON THE ENTIRE EARTH I CAN’T BELIEVE SOMEONE AS PURE AND GENTLE AS ANDY WAS CAST TO PLAY SOMEONE AS DISGUSTING AS SCORPIO AND I KNOW IT WAS REALLY HARD FOR HIM TO DO THAT AND ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE PEOPLE STILL ACT LIKE HE’S SICK AND EVIL BECAUSE THEY CAN’T TELL THE ACTOR FROM THE CHARACTER AND I’M SO MAD ANDREW J ROBINSON IS SO TALENTED AND SWEET AND KIND AND HE DESERVES NOTHING LESS THAN THE WORLD AND I CAN AND WILL DIE FOR HIM THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
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