Underappreciated Actors: Dan Lauria
Filed Under (Movies) by admin on 19-04-2009
Tagged Under : Dan Lauria, The Wonder Years, Underappreciated Actors
Taste in movies and television shows is a wide-ranging and inconsistent thing. It can be difficult for two people to agree on what shows are good and bad, or even what kind of shows. But to the extent that any such consensus is possible, it seems to be fairly well agreed-upon that, as much as any show before it or since, The Wonder Years was in touch with the human heart.
And if The Wonder Years was a show with heart, there was nobody who contributed more to the genuine nature of the show than the strong-but-flawed, all-too-human patriarch of the Arnold family, character actor Dan Lauria. Season after season, he played a man who watched his children and their friends grow up, his wife grow more independent, his mortality grow more tangible. For my money, anyway, nobody ever did a better job of capturing the nuances of what a father is…from the perspective of his children.
And yet there has not been a whole lot of fanfare for Dan Lauria in the years since. There were no Emmy awards for his role, though they would not have been out of place. There were no big budget leading roles in the year to follow.
Undoubtedly Lauria has drawn upon a rich life in infusing his characters with the conflict and humanity they tend to have (when given sufficient screen time). A veteran of the Vietnam War, it is not difficult to imagine how this might have added to the authenticity of the Jack Arnold character, himself a veteran of the war in Korea.
Lauria has remained active, however, guest starring in such wide-ranging TV shows as How I Met Your Mother, CSI, Law and Order, ER and Party of Five. He also played Robert Loggia’s right hand man in the big budget blockbuster Independence Day, and a competing detective to Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss in the 1980s hit Stakeout (as well as its sequel).
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