American actor Joe Turkel, known for playing the eerie bartender Lloyd in The Shining by Stanley Kubrick and the replicant creator Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, has passed away at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 94.
Joe Turkel died last Monday, as his family announced to The Hollywood Reporter.
Throughout his long career, Turkel collaborated with Kubrick three times. In addition to his iconic role in The Shining (1980), he played a gunslinger in the climactic shootout of The Killing (1956) and a soldier sent to the execution squad in Paths of Glory (1957). His collaboration with Kubrick made him a familiar face to fans of the director.
The actor also appeared in a wide range of other genre films. He portrayed Abu the Genie and a gangster, respectively, in the 1960 films The Boy and the Pirates and Tormented. He played a POW in The Sand Pebbles (1966) by Robert Wise and took on the role of “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, a corrupt fixer, in Roger Corman’s The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967).
Beyond cinema, Turkel had a long television career, appearing in popular series such as Bonanza, Kojak, and Miami Vice, demonstrating his versatility in dramatic and criminal roles.
In 1999, Turkel moved to Southern California, where he continued working on screenplays and cultivating his love for writing. In a 2014 interview, he declared that Paths of Glory was his favorite film among those he had acted in, calling it a work of great moral and human impact.
Before his death, Turkel completed a memoir titled The Misery of Success, offering a personal reflection on his career and the challenges he faced in the entertainment industry. The book is set to be released in 2022 and represents a deep dive into a long and often underappreciated career that left a lasting mark on the cinematic landscape.
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