When Tarantino cast John Travolta in Pulp Fiction (1994), it was a revival for a star who had fallen fast; when he cast Pam Grier in Jackie Brown (1997), it was an act of homage to an icon from cinematic ages past. But when Tarantino paired the role of Mr. Blonde with Madsen in his debut film as a writer-director, 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, he was merely picking the right actor: one of cool, stealthy steeliness whose hulking manner and sotto voce speaking style gave him a unique capacity for intimidation.

Madsen, who died on July 3 at the age of 67, is perhaps the Tarantino actor who depended least on Tarantino for his career. He made good movies prior to Reservoir Dogs, and made good ones later as well. Throughout his career, he was most in demand for crime stories, film noirs, and action programmers — the sort of disreputable fare befitting the bad guy countenance that came so naturally to him.

Born in Chicago in 1957, Madsen freely admitted that he didn’t have the natural makings of an actor or the surest path to career success. Despite the show-business strides made by his younger sister, Virginia, Madsen considered it unlikely that two siblings from the same Midwestern capital would flourish in the bright lights.

“I was basically an auto mechanic in Chicago, and it was my sister Virginia who was the actress in the family,” Madsen said in an interview with the AV Club in 2015. “The likelihood of one person — let alone two, a brother and a sister — coming out of the south side of Chicago from a blue-collar family and making it in the film industry is pretty astronomical, if you stop and think about it.”

Yet Madsen’s unique presence, such as the physical command with which he carried himself and the quiet ferocity with which he expressed himself, proved as irresistible to studio heads as did his sister’s studied sultriness. Madsen quickly accumulated attention-grabbing bit parts in a series of widely seen films, including WarGames (1983), Racing with the Moon (1984), and The Natural (1984). All three were relatively serious dramas, but soon enough, he found his natural habitat in genre filmmaking: His roles were bigger and better in maverick filmmaker Monte Hellman’s bizarre riff on Beauty and the Beast, Iguana (1988) and in John Dahl’s film noir Kill Me Again (1989), in which he appeared opposite Val Kilmer.

Further challenging the myth that his career was made through his association with Tarantino, Madsen appeared in flashy roles in two hits from 1991, Thelma & Louise and The Doors. Then came Reservoir Dogs, which shocked and awed audiences largely on the strength of a scene in which Mr. Blonde, played by Madsen, cues up “Stuck in the Middle With You” and produces a straight razor before torturing a police officer. Seen today, this scene is something of an atrocity against decency — a young, possibly insecure filmmaker’s attempt to gain attention. Yet it cannot be denied that Madsen inhabited his role with unfathomably understated menace. 

To his credit, Madsen went to some lengths to diversify his career. In the years that followed, he declined an invitation to appear in Pulp Fiction and instead chose parts in the Western Wyatt Earp (1994) and, in a remarkable demonstration of his range, in Free Willy (1993) and its sequel, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995).

“I’m glad to have been in it,” he told the AV Club, referring to the first Free Willy. “It was one of those things that balances out my bad guys, you know?”

Soon enough, Madsen was back on home turf. He was never less than authoritative in genre flicks ranging from the sci-fi chiller Species (1995) to the film noir Mulholland Falls (1996) to the well-regarded mafia movie Donnie Brasco (1997). And, in time, he returned to Tarantino’s orbit: He was especially memorable as the down-on-his-heels sibling of the titular Bill in the two volumes of Kill Bill (2003-2004). Tarantino again cast Madsen in The Hateful Eight (2015) and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019).

PUBLIC BROADCASTING, A PUBLIC MENACE? 

By then, of course, Madsen routinely appeared in movies that were both undistinguished and indistinguishable from one another: in the year 2016, his credits, such as they were, included Vigilante Diaries, Kidnapped in Romania, Last Man Club, and Devil’s Domain. Yet Madsen showed up to work and did his best. As he explained in a 2016 interview with the Independent: “When people offered me work, it wasn’t always the best, but I had to buy groceries and I had to put gas in the car.” This is not an apologia for making bad movies, but the definition of professionalism. 

For fans of Tarantino, Madsen’s death must have come as something of a shock. Even a filmmaker once defined by youthful vigor will live long enough to see his colleagues buried. And when Madsen is buried, what will go to the grave with him is an acting career of unique intensity.

Peter Tonguette is a contributing writer to the Washington Examiner magazine.