Details on The Quad Cinema's Sam Elliot series

Over his nearly 50-year career, Sam Elliott has long been one of the most distinctive presences in American television and movies. A onetime Fox contract player and inimitable character actor, Elliott has enlivened dozens of pictures with his sly sense of humor, horseshoe mustache, silky baritone, and preternatural charisma. On the occasion of the release of Brett Haley's new film The Hero, which offers the actor a touching, long-overdue leading role, we revisit a handful of our favorite Elliott parts, and welcome him to the Quad to discuss his storied life onscreen. The Hero opens in New York on June 9 courtesy of The Orchard.

The Legacy

Richard Marquand, 1978, U.S., 102m, 35mm
June 7, 7.00pm
Elliott and future wife Katharine Ross star as an impossibly handsome pair of decorators hired for an odd gig by an even odder reclusive billionaire. When a series of horrific accidents begin killing off the fellow guests at his stately home, it becomes clear there’s a Satanic plot afoot. With cameos from The Who frontman Roger Daltrey and Elliott’s posterior.

Mask: Director’s Cut

Peter Bogdanovich, 1985, U.S., 127m, 35mm
June 7, 4.15pm & June 8, 7.00pm*
In this affecting tearjerker, Elliott shines as Gar, biker boyfriend to Cher and de facto father figure to her teenage son Eric Stoltz, a boy struggling with adolescence and a profoundly deformed face. Bogdanovich eagerly pursued Elliott for the role in his comeback picture, and the actor’s effortless charm has rarely been put to more effective use.

*With Sam Elliott in person

Road House

Rowdy Herrington, 1989, U.S., 114m, 35mm
June 8, 9.45pm
Bouncer-with-a-PhD Patrick Swayze is called in to clean up whiskey joint the Double Deuce, but when he runs afoul of crooked businessman Ben Gazzara, his older mentor Elliott comes to join in the fight. Elliott did his own stunts for this feature-length bar brawl: “I f**king got the sh** kicked out of me for the entire film.”

Shakedown

James Glickenhaus, 1988, U.S., 97m, 35mm
June 7, 9.15pm & June 8, 4.45pm
In full-on tough-guy mode, Elliott plays a veteran NYC detective who must buddy up with Peter Weller’s vanilla public defender after discovering a conspiracy between crack dealers and cops in this solid crime saga. Features several gloriously over-the-top action sequences in Coney Island and Times Square, and no shortage of macho wisecracks.