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When I think of Frankenstein, I think of Tom Noonan. His portrayal of the monster in one of my favorite movies, 1987 cult classic The Monster Squad, shaped everything I grew up knowing about the character. Noonan’s Frankenstein monster was kind; he made friends, and he could very easily rip you limb from limb. He also called things “bogus,” which is a great way to describe the news this week that Noonan has passed away at the age of 74. “Bogus,” indeed.
Besides playing the famous monster, Noonan had an incredible career working with some of the industry’s best. Born in 1951, Noonan didn’t start acting in films until his late twenties. He did a bunch of small roles before landing the leading role of Francis Dollarhyde, aka the Tooth Fairy, in Michael Mann’s 1981 film, Manhunter. It was the first Hannibal Lecter movie, and Noonan played the role of the killer that Hannibal helped the FBI find. He was terrifying, and it set the stage for his career to come.
Noonan found his best-known work playing villains like that. He’s the villainous Cain in RoboCop 2, he’s the unstoppable “Ripper” opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero, and he worked with Mann again in Heat as a criminal named Kelso. Later, he worked with Oscar-winning Charlie Kaufman on some of the filmmaker’s weirder works: Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa. Then, his TV work was arguably even more impressive, filled with shows like The X-Files, 12 Monkeys, The Leftovers, Damages, Hell on Wheels, and so much more.
It was a storied career that lasted almost four decades. But, with his work in The Monster Squad, Noonan went against his typecast, bringing a specific innocence to the character that really got to its core. On Facebook, the film’s director, Fred Dekker, wrote about the late star and how he got him to appear in a movie about kids fighting monsters. “I knew the first thing a serious actor would want to know was that my vision for Frankenstein was serious and not ‘campy,'” Dekker recalled. “Luckily, this was the case. ‘He isn’t a monster,’ I argued, ‘but rather, a pitiable creature born from perverted science and cadavers—a sad, freakish orphan whose only goal is to live a normal life.'”
There’s more to that story (read it here), but Tom Noonan himself lived anything but a normal life. He created. He entertained. And he inspired. For me personally, he inspired a love of monsters that still lives to this day. He showed how even in the scariest places, love and compassion can be found. He’ll be truly missed.
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