My tribute to John Heard

Updated 9-23-2006.
Click here for pictures of Mr. Heard.

Background summary/introduction:

John Heard is a talented and well-recognized actor who has played a wide range of characters through the years. Though he has yet to achieve much in the way of "leading man" status, and he's far from a "household name," he is undoubtedly a "household face." Mr. Heard has starred in numerous television, stage, and feature film roles, including Big, Heaven Help Us, Home Alone I and Home Alone II: Lost in New York, as well as "The Sopranos."

Biography

Early career

John "Jack" Heard was born on March 7th, 1945 in Washington, DC. He attended Gonzaga College High School in Washington D.C., and later Clark University, in Worcester, MA graduating in 1968. At the beginning of his career, Heard starred in numerous theatre productions and received the 1976-77 Theatre World award. His film career began in 1976 in Rush It, also starring Tom Berenger and Jill Eikenberry, though his real break-out came with First Love one year later. Mr. Heard also received substantial critical acclaim for his faithful portrayal of the oppressive puritan Arthur Dimmesdale in the 1979 TV mini-series version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter. In 1985, Mr. Heard worked for the first time with Catherine O'Hara in After Hours.

Success

Mr. Heard got the chance to let the world see his abilities shine once again in the smash hit Big co-starring two-time Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks and Directed by Golden-Globe nominee Penny Marshall in 1988. This role allowed Heard to show off his chops to audiences world-wide as the prototypical "yuppie jerk" / jealous boyfriend of the 1980s. Two years later, Mr. Heard managed to completely change directions and again work with Catherine O'Hara, playing the father-figure Peter McCallister in 1988's Home Alone.

While his screen time was not as substantial as that of Macaulay C. Culkin or Ms. O'Hara, he managed to lend a great deal of intelligence to this role as the loving and caring father of an exceptionally large upper-middle class Irish-Catholic family. In this role. Mr. Heard is caring-yet-distant, smart-but-unaware, and financially healthy but out of touch with the source of his real wealth: his family. Mr. Heard painfully recreates the all-too-common American Parent who puts so much emphasis on his income and stock portfolio, he literally forgets where one of his own children are. At the end of the film, we see Kevin -- and through him, his family -- rise above this sadly common scenario. The formerly alienated characters come together with the members of the community and family, including the next-door neighbor, an elderly man originally perceived to be a menace and a danger precisely because of his alone-nessand his lack of member status in this local community. Kevin realizes that this man is actually a caring individual, and that the old man, like Kevin himself, has lost contact with his family. Where does this coming together of opposites occur? The community church.

Clearly, the makers of this film are trying to underline the importance of community in our society amidst the trappings of modern life. The film also demonstrates his understanding of the sociological roots of Religion. After all, Emile Durkheim, one of the most important early theorists in the field of Sociology, wrote that the very root of religious activity was as a type of community foundation, a complex set of symbols and beliefs that bind the community together, through thick and thin. There are also glimpses of Mircea Eliade's emphasis on the Sacred and the Profane (outlined in his magnum opus of the same name), with the Sacred represented by the family, the pure-of-heart young boy, and the Church, and the profane represented by the violence and nihilism of the two drifter-thieves with no values and no sense of community, even between each other. This comes through as a clear and touching, if somewhat heavy-handed, metaphor for the collapse of the family unit and the break down of sprituality in America amidst record economic growth. Home Alone went on to become one of the most successful films of all time, with its all-time gross nearly reaching that of "Star Wars."

Much as The Godfather was hailed as an "Italian-American Gone with the Wind" because of its unusually talented ensemble cast and dedication to presenting a real-world image of life and family, Home Alone will undoubtedly be judged by history as the "Irish-Catholic Suburban Mid-Western American Lighthearted Comedy Version" of Gone with the Wind. Mr. Heard later reprised his role in the somewhat less critically-acclaimed sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Concluding thoughts

It has been said that while Mr. Culkin got the most press for the first groundbreaking film in this series, it was the supporting roles of people like Mr. Heard, as well as Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, and of course, Devin Ratray (he played Kevin's older brother "Buzz") that made these two films trully great. There is little doubt that the essays, articles, journals, books, websites, web-based encyclopedia entries, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, filmmaker commentary tracks, limited-edition DVD Boxed Sets, documentary films, John-Heard related Symposia, online Bulletin Boards, discussion groups, movie-club meetings, lectures, conferences and other works that will attempt to analyze Home Alone will fill up much shelf space in libraries and consume much scholarly research in the halls of academia in years to come: we only hope that history will be a fair judge in giving Mr. Heard due deference for his role in these great works.

Recent and Future Projects

John played Detective Vin Makazian in the first season of "The Sopranos," for which he received an Emmy nod in 1999. In this particularly dark appearance, John portrays a troubled "bad cop" who has moved to the wrong side of the law while trying to work off his debt to the mafia. Though he appears only briefly in a guest role, John lends the character a great deal of intelligence and proves to be a real "scene stealer," even next to such heavy-hitters as three-time Emmy-award winning actor James Gandolfini. Clearly drawing on his background as a theatre-trained thespian, he effortlessly portray the character as a selfish sociopath who also strives to retain his humanity. He comes across as someone with elements of humanity who is also a monster, someone clearly conflicted by powerful feelings of guilt and hurt, while struggling with his own identity and role in society. John demonstrates his unique ability talent for Sean Penn-esque explosiveness and violence coupled with his portrayal of a quiet, smoldering desperation.

Mr. Heard recently worked in the title role of "Researching Raymond Burke," (not to be confused with acting legend Raymond Burr, late star of Perry Mason), and starred in White Chicks, The Deal (2005) and The Chumscrubber. Other recent works include appearances on "Law & Order: SVU," "Hack," a small cameo in "The Test Dream," a season five episode of "The Sopranos" and O, a remake of Shakespeare's Othello set in modern times. John has also had a recurring role in "CSI: Miami."

John married Superman Actress Margot Kidder in 1979, divorcing in the same year. Details of this Hollywood-Romance are few and far between: John has seldom spoken publicly about this time in his life. John was also involved with actress Melissa Leo (she was Sgt. Kay Howard from TV's "Homicide" and Benicio del Toro's wife, Marianne Jordan, in the acclaimed 21 Grams), and the relationship produced one son born in the late 1980s.