Dick Miller
☼ Born on 25 February 1928, in The Bronx, New York, USA
† Died on 30 February 2019, in Toluca Lake, California, USA, cause natural causes
Biography Born in the Bronx, New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents (Isidor "Ira" and Rita Blucher Miller), Richard Miller served in the U.S. Navy for a few years and earned a prize title as a middleweight boxer. He settled in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, where he was noticed by producer/director Roger Corman, who cast him in most of his low-budget films, often as dislikeable sorts, such as a vacuum-cleaner salesman in Not of This Earth (1957). His most memorable role would have to be that of the mentally unstable, busboy/beatnik artist Walter Paisley, whose clay sculptures are suspiciously lifelike in A Bucket of Blood (1959) (a rare starring role for him), and he is also fondly remembered for his supporting role as the flower-eating Vurson Fouch in Corman's legendary The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Miller spent the next 20 years working in Corman productions, and starting in the late 1970s was often cast in films by director Joe Dante, appearing in credited and uncredited walk-on bits as quirky chatterboxes, and stole every scene he appeared in. He has played many variations on his famous Walter Paisley role, such as a diner owner (Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)) or a janitor (Chopping Mall (1986)). One of his best bits is the funny occult-bookshop owner in The Howling (1981). Being short (so he never played a romantic lead or a threatening villain) with wavy hair, long sideburns, a pointed nose and a face as trustworthy as a used-car dealer's, he was, and is to this day,  (click to expand) an immediately recognizable character actor whose one-scene appearances in countless movies and TV shows guarantee audience applause.


In the role of actor

That Guy Dick Miller (27/03/2015)

Quintessential character actor Dick Miller is the subject of Elijah Drenner’s documentary That Guy Dick Miller.  With a career that spans six decades, Dick Miller began his acting career in 1955, playing both a cowboy and Indian in Roger Corman’s Apache Woman.  Miller would become one of Corman’s regular actors, with his breakout being his […]

Tales from the Organ Trade (30/04/2013)

There are people all over the world, who are desperate in need of a new organ to survive.  However, there is not enough supply to meet the demand and there are people who end up waiting years for a qualified donor to appear.  As such, some people go to extreme measures and spend thousands of […]