Richard Miller was an American character actor who appeared in more than 180 films, including many produced by Roger Corman. He later appeared in the films of directors who began their careers with Corman, including Joe Dante and James Cameron and Martin Scorsese, with the distinction of appearing in every film directed by Dante. He was known for playing the beleaguered everyman, often in one scene appearances. Miller's main roles have been in films such as Gremlins, , Explorers, Piranha, The Howling, A Bucket of Blood, The Little Shop of Horrors, Not of This Earth, Chopping Mall, Night of the Creeps, The Terminator, The 'Burbs and Small Soldiers.
Miller performed on Broadway and also worked at the Bellevue Hospital Mental Hygiene Clinic and the psychiatric department of Queens General Hospital. In 1952, he moved to California seeking work as a writer. One of his earliest acting roles was in Apache Woman. He played one of the townspeople and also played a separate role as an Indian. In an action scene his townsperson character shoots his Indian character, as related in the documentary Corman's World. His roles in movies include White Line Fever, The Terminator, All The Right Moves, Night of the Creeps, Small Soldiers, It Conquered the World, A Bucket of Blood, The Little Shop of Horrors, the Tales from the Crypt movie Demon Knight, Amazon Women on the Moon, Chopping Mall, The Howling, Piranha and I WannaHold Your Hand. His best known role was in the movies Gremlins and ' as Murray Futterman. He appeared in Pulp Fiction as Monster Joe, but his scene and a few others were deleted because of the length of the film. He also appeared in Rod Stewart's music video for the song "Infatuation" in 1984, with Mike Mazurki and Kay Lenz. His television credits include Combat!, as a young soldier in the 5th season episode "The Outsider"; Police Squad! ; V: The Final Battle as Dan Pascal; three seasons as the generous bartender Lou Mackie on Fame; ', in the season 1 episode "The Big Goodbye", as the newspaper stand man in the holodeck; ', in the season 3 two-part episode "Past Tense", as Vin; Time of Your Life; as a prison guard in Soap ; and as the voice of the gangster Chuckie Sol in the animated feature film'. Miller has also directed television shows, including "The Fix", a 1986 episode of the series Miami Vice. In 2000, Miller was featured alongside former collaborators including Roger Corman, Sam Arkoff and Peter Bogdanovich in the documentary SCHLOCK! The Secret History of American Movies, a film about the rise and fall of American exploitation cinema. In 2014 he appeared in a documentary of his life, That Guy Dick Miller. Miller is also credited for being in a Sega CD video game called Prize Fighter in which he plays the role of a corner man for the main character.
Walter Paisley
Miller portrayed several fictional characters named Walter Paisley. As Miller noted, "I've played Walter Paisley five times now, I think." By 2011, the character name had actually appeared seven times on film and once in a theatrical production, with Miller providing six of these portrayals. The name first appeared in the Roger Corman film A Bucket of Blood. In that film, Paisley is a busboy who becomes an artist of sorts by killing his subjects and covering them in clay. In 1976, Miller once again played a character named Walter Paisley—this time a talent agent—in another Corman production, Hollywood Boulevard, directed by Allan Arkush and Joe Dante. Dante cast Miller as another character named Walter Paisley in the 1981 film The Howling. This time, Paisley is the owner of an occult bookshop. Two years later, the name popped up again for another Miller character, the owner of a diner in the third segment of . 1986's Chopping Mall featured a janitor named Walter Paisley, and the 1994 made-for-TV remake of Shake, Rattle and Rock! had Miller playing a character named Officer Paisley. Officer Paisley also appeared in Night of the Creeps. Additionally, two other actors have portrayed the A Bucket of Blood character. Anthony Michael Hall played the character in the 1995 television remake, while James Stanton portrayed the character in a musical produced by Chicago's Annoyance Theatre.
Personal life
Miller married Lainie on October 6, 1967 and had one child, Barbara. Miller died of natural causes on January 30, 2019, in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles.
