Veteran actor and former stuntman Richard Farnsworth sadly took his own life at his New Mexico home on 6 October. Farnsworth had been diagnosed as suffering from terminal cancer and chose to commit suicide with a shotgun rather than suffer the ravages of the disease.
Born in Los Angeles on 1 September 1920, Farnsworth first found work in Hollywood as a stuntman after developing a natural gift for working with horses. Working mainly in Westerns, Farnsworth racked up a number of notable credits, including Howard Hawks' "Red River" (1948) before gaining other stunt work in such landmark productions as Laslo Bendek's "The Wild One" (1954) and Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus" (1960).
Slowly but surely Farnsworth graduated to small but not insignificant acting parts, including some of the finest productions of the 1970s. Farnsworth appeared in "Ulzana's Raid" (1972), "Rooster Cogburn" (1975) and Clint Eastwood's revisionist opus "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976). Two years later, Farnsworth got his big break alongside Jane Fonda and James Caan in "Comes A Horseman", earning an Academy Award nomination.
The next decade was not so eventful but the 90s saw a resurgent interest in his finely honed character acting skills, including a memorable performance in "Misery".
Farnsworth's final role - for which he became the oldest actor ever to receive an Academy Award nomination at the grand age of 80 - came in David Lynch's elegiac "The Straight Story". Farnsworth's grizzled looks were put to use as Alvin Straight, an aged but kindly Iowa curmudgeon who travels some 250 miles on his lawnmower to visit his estranged brother.
It was a towering performance of great warmth, insight and humilty and a fitting epitaph to a man of admirable compassion and longevity.
