Tom Noonan, the famous actor in the films Heat and Manhunter, dies at the age of 74. Movie

Tom Noonan, the actor known for his collaborations with Michael Mann, has died at the age of 74.

His death was confirmed by Fred Dekker, the director of the 1980s horror comedy The Monster Squad which saw Noonan play Frankenstein’s monster.

“It is with great sadness that I share the passing of Tom Noonan,” he wrote on Facebook. “Tom’s indelible performance as Frankenstein in The Monster Squad is one of my humble cinematic highlights…He was the proverbial gentleman and scholar, and the world has lost a great talent.”

Karen Silas, who starred with Noonan in “Whatever Happened Was…”, a film Noonan wrote, directed and starred in, based on his play, was also praised on social media. “What a privilege and crazy fun it was to work with this man and call him my friend until the end,” she wrote.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.

Noonan began his career in off-Broadway theatre, a stretch that saw him star in the original production of Sam Shepard’s play The Buried Child, before beginning to work in film in the 1980s. One of his first roles was in Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, and he then appeared in Tom Hanks’ comedy The Man with One Red Shoe and the thriller F/X.

In 1986, he worked with Mann in Thomas Harris’s film adaptation of Manhunter, where he played serial killer Francis Dolarhyde.

“I was getting a little bit out of my acting, but I was really poor and desperate, and that’s a real part,” Noonan later said in an interview. “I then proceeded to turn the movie down about five times. I just wanted to get paid more than they were willing to pay me. They wanted to pay me like $35,000 to do this whole movie. That was back in 1985, but I said, ‘I won’t do it for less than $100,000.’ My agent said, ‘You’re crazy.'” Somehow, they ended up giving me that amount of money.

Noonan later reunited with Mann for the 1995 film Heat.

His credits also included RoboCop 2, Last Action Hero, The Astronaut’s Wife, The Pledge, The House of the Devil and Eight Legged Freaks. He also made two films with Charlie Kaufman: Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa, in which he voiced all the supporting characters. Noonan’s last big screen credit was Todd Haynes’ fantasy film Wonderstruck alongside Michelle Williams.

On the small screen, Noonan has appeared in shows including The X Files, The Leftovers, Damages, and The Blacklist.

“I’ve always been a very quiet, sarcastic, subtle person, and a lot of the roles I play are these loud-mouthed lunatics who have something really wrong with them,” Noonan said in 1994.

In addition to What Happened Was…, Noonan also wrote a play called Wifey which he later turned into a movie called The Wife.