Warren Oates, the gruff, everyman character actor best remembered for his film roles as the dim-witted but intimidating half of the Gorch Brothers in The Wild Bunch and the aptly named Sgt. Hulka in the Bill Murray Army comedy vehicle Stripes, would have been 85 years old today. Oates had succumbed to cancer back in 1982.

Oates seemed to be a chameleon in his roles, a merry-go-round of styles in a various litany of genres; he played famed real-life gangster John Dillinger (in Dillinger), did turns in Sam Peckinpah projects like the aforementioned The Wild Bunch and Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, and did stints with other famed directors like Terrence Malick (Badlands), William Friedkin (The Brinks Job), and Steven Spielberg (the panned at the time, but semi-cult comedy in today’s climate 1941).