Kevin Costner: A face on the cutting room floor

Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness in the 1987 movie "The Untouchables".

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His first appearance in a major motion picture didn’t even make it on screen. Instead it landed on the cutting room floor. It is now not much more than a foot note in history, or the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question, that Kevin Costner played the dead friend whose funeral everybody came back to attend in “The Big Chill”.

It was an inauspicious start to a decade that saw his career launched and, in subsequent years, skyrocket.

Kevin Costner has a new movie coming out, and it got me thinking back to when it all started.

Paying his dues
Kevin Costner’s career coincided with the start of a new decade. He spent the first half of the decade paying his dues with bit parts in movies.

Those productions were “Sizzle Beach, U.S.A.” in 1981, Costner’s film debut; “Chasing Dreams” in 1982, where he plays the main character’s older brother; “Night Shift”, in 1982, where Costner’s role is “Frat Boy #1”; “Frances”, also in 1982, where Jessica Lange plays 1930s actress Frances Farmer; “Stacy’s Knights” in 1983; “Table for Five”, in 1983, where he plays “Newlywed Husband”; and “Testament”, in 1983, about a small town dealing with the outside world being wiped out by nuclear war.

Costner’s final role in 1983 was Alex Marshall in “The Big Chill”, which is uncredited, more than being cut.

After “The Big Chill”, Costner appeared in “Shadows Run Black”, in 1984, where he plays the main suspect in a string of serial killings; and “Fandango”, in 1985, where Costner had his first starring role, about a group of college students who go on a last road trip together before they have to confront real life.

Costner would leave all this behind, when he landed a role that drew a lot more attention, and began his love affair with the western lifestyle.

A town called Silverado
It remains one of my favourite movies, an opinion I had reinforced when I tripped over it again on TV a few weeks ago, and had to keep watching it to the end.

“Silverado”, which came out in 1985, tells the story of a number of men looking for a new life in the Wild West and teaming up to achieve that, while dispatching some very bad men, in the process.

One of the good guys is Emmett, played by Scott Glenn, who is looking to get to Silverado where he and his family can begin new lives as farmers. A very young Kevin Costner plays Emmett’s hot-headed, sharp-shooting brother Jake who keeps getting into situations big brother has to get him out of. In one, Emmett and his new friend Paden, played by Kevin Kline, have to bust Jake out of jail and save him from being hanged. Later, Jake is again captured, but fakes his own death by falling off a horse, only to come back for the exciting finale.

What stands out about this role for me is that Jake is fun-loving, reckless, happy go lucky, and always smiling. It is a stark contrast to all the serious, stern roles Costner would play right up to this day including John Dutton on “Yellowstone”.

Flying high
Costner’s next movie, “American Flyers”, also came out in 1985. He plays Marcus Sommers, a sports medicine doctor and competitive cyclist, who has been estranged from his mother and brother David since the death of their father.

Their father died of a cerebral aneurysm, something David fears he may have inherited. Marcus gets him to come back to Wisconsin with him to be tested, then convinces him to compete with him in a grueling, three-day bike race.

In the end, it is actually Marcus who has inherited the medical condition and, after winning the first stage of the race, has it begin to take hold, weakening him more and more. It is left to David to win the race, while their mother arrives to see Marcus and cheer on David. In the last scene, they have made up and pose for a photo together – as a family again.

The other thing that stands out about “American Flyers” is the cheesy moustache that Kevin Costner sports. That’s why I joke “American Flyers” stars Kevin Costner before he was Kevin Costner.

Double trouble
Kevin Costner would reach the next level in his career in 1987, with two outstanding performances in two hit movies.

He played Eliot Ness in “The Untouchables”, a movie based on the popular 1960s TV series. Ness was a Bureau Of Prohibition Agent who took on organized crime and Al Capone, played by Robert DeNiro, who was selling illegal booze during Prohibition in the 1930s. Sean Connery was also in “The Untouchables”, winning the Oscar for Best Supporting actor as Jim Malone, a veteran cop who helps Ness take down Capone.

Costner then turned to espionage in “No Way Out”, playing a naval officer investigating a murder, that involved a suspected KGB mole.

I never saw “No Way Out”, but I was living in student residence at the University of Alberta at the time, and a bunch of guys on my floor saw it. They all raved about how great it was.

Well on his way now, Costner turned to the ball diamond for his next two movies, which are both classics now.

Meet Crash Davis
When I got back to Southern Alberta in the Spring of 1988 after finishing my first year of university in Edmonton, there was a brand new mall in Lethbridge with a brand new theatre complex of six screens.

I had seen this profile on CBC of this movie about minor-league baseball that starred Susan Sarandon and – Kevin Costner. “Bull Durham” was one of the first movies I saw at that Park Place Mall theatre, and it was well worth it.

Costner plays Crash Davis, a career minor league catcher whose job is often to groom pitchers for the major leagues, or as he calls it, “The Show”. In the movie, he is charged with mentoring pitcher Ebby “Nuke” Laloosh, played by a very young Tim Robbins, who has a million-dollar arm but a ten-cent head. Meanwhile, there is a local named Annie Savoy, played by Sarandon, who picks one ball player every season to be with. She chooses Nuke, but the sparks seriously fly between her and Crash, and the story goes from there.

Some of my favourite moments are the little speeches Crash gives – on what he believes in; describing “The Show”; and teaching Nuke to speak in clichés.

Crash Davis is still one of my favourite Kevin Costner roles because he is funny, serious, ironic, and so much more.

He was back on the diamond in 1989, but it was much different.

Build it and they will come
“Field of Dreams” is a whimsical movie that is as much fantasy as sports movie. Costner plays Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella who hears voices telling him to build a baseball diamond in his corn field. They keep whispering “Build it and they will come”. Costner’s role is more understated as he tries to figure out what is going on, while trying to convince those around him he is not going crazy.

It is another great movie that has as much to do with family, redemption, and love as baseball.

As the ‘80s ended, Kevin Costner was just beginning a career that would take him to new heights as not only an actor but director, producer and writer.

The years after
He began the new decade with the blockbuster “Dances With Wolves”, which won him Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director and a nomination for Best Actor. He also won a Golden Globe for Best Director Motion Picture, and was nominated for Best Actor Drama.

Costner would go on to movies such as “Revenge”; “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”; “JFK”, where he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor Drama; “The Bodyguard”; “A Perfect World”; “Wyatt Earp”; “The War”; “Waterworld”; “Tin Cup”, where he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor Musical or Comedy; “The Postman”; “Message in a Bottle”; “For Love of the Game”; “Play it to the Bone”; “Thirteen Days”; “3000 Miles to Graceland”; “Dragonfly”; “Open Range”; “The Guardian”; “The Company Men”; “Man of Steel”; “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”; “Draft Day”; “Hidden Figures”; “The Highwaymen”; and much more.

Later in his career, Costner started doing more television including “Hatfields and McCoys”. For his efforts, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie, and was nominated for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. He also won a Golden Globe for Best Actor Miniseries or Television Film.

Perhaps his most famous role is Montana ranching magnate John Dutton in “Yellowstone”, where he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor Television Series Drama.

He continues to act, direct, write and produce to this day. His latest work is the “Horizon” trilogy of westerns, with the first one coming out this year, the second set to come out later this year and the third in post-production.

Parting thoughts
If you look up prolific in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Kevin Costner. He has done just about everything imaginable from drama and comedy to sports, fantasy, action, adventure, epic and spectacle.

Not only has he portrayed all kinds of roles, but created some pretty amazing movies as director, producer and writer.

There are so many roles I have enjoyed him in too, from Crash Davis in “Bull Durham” to Ray Kinsella in “Field of Dreams”; Billy Chapel in “For Love of the Game”; Garret Blake in “Message in a Bottle”; the title role in “Wyatt Earp”; Kenny O’Donnell in “Thirteen Days”; Frank Farmer in “The Bodyguard”, and even Marcus Sommers in “American Flyers” and John Dutton in “Yellowstone”.

There really are too many to name, because he has done so much.

That speaks to an amazing career, that just keeps on going.

He has come a long way from that uncredited role in “The Big Chill”.