#RIP: Robert Forster was more than his great 'Jackie Brown' role

Like most people of my generation I first became aware of Robert Forster after seeing his stunning, subtle turn as a burnt out bail bondsman who gets a new lease on life when he teams up with a scheming Pam Grier in the Quentin Tarantino classic Jackie Brown.

Thanks to that Oscar nominated turn, I was able to do eventually do a deep dive into this underrated B-movie leading man's career which despite its ups and downs help on strong for multiple decades.

Sadly, he has passed away at 78, and while his Jackie Brown role will always be fondly remembered, film buffs shouldn't sleep on some of his lesser known work.

For instance, he was the star of one of the great counter culture movies of the late 1960s -- the politically-charged Medium Cool. He's the audience surrogate in the movie -- an ambitious film journalist covering chaos on the periphery of the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In the movie, Forster is a real heartthrob in the George Clooney mode, and you'd think this acclaimed film would have led to him thriving in the auteur driven '70s where actors like him really thrived, but instead for one reason or another he got bogged down in B-movie trash and high profile misses like The Black Hole.

That's not to say there aren't a few hidden gems in there that are worth a look. The most beloved entry is probably Alligator, a totally bonkers 1980 film about a killer reptile stalking the streets of Chicago. In it, Forster plays a weary beat cop whose is insecure about his hair loss.

Both the film and his performance are firmly tongue in cheek -- the script was written by John Sayles after all -- and you can see traces of the Max Cherry character in Jackie Brown throughout this film.

Another fun watch is a thoroughly '80s action film called Vigilante, in which Forster starred alongside another B-movie legend, Fred Williamson. and iconic movie tough guy, Woody Strode. In it, Forster gives a badass, totally committed performance as a man out for revenge after his family has been savagely attacked.

In later years, he had a fruitful collaboration with director David Lynch, who had originally hoped to cast him in the Sheriff Harry Truman role on Twin Peaks. Instead, he cameoed in Mulholland Drive and stole several scenes as Truman's even-keeled brother on Twin Peaks: The Return.

I can still hear his voice -- kind of flat and matter-a-fact. He always seemed to not even be acting -- he just was that down to earth guy. He seemed to have a great, buoyant spirit and was working all the way to the end (he pops up in the new Breaking Bad movie, too), and cinephiles will cherish much of what he did in his 50-year plus career.