Actor: Philip Baker Hall

Philip Baker Hall was in his sixties when Paul Thomas Anderson cast him in Hard Eight, having written the part for him after seeing him in a short film, and he appeared in three more of Anderson’s films.

Magnolia gives him a dying game show host, and Boogie Nights a small role of real sadness. Seinfeld gave him Lieutenant Bookman, a library investigator played entirely as a hardboiled detective, which is among that show’s best guest performances.