R.I.P. Earl Boen, veteran voice actor and Terminator co-star
Boen appeared as hapless psychologist Dr. Silberman in the first three Terminator movies
Aux News Earl Boen
Earl Boen has died. A veteran character and voice actor, Boen will be most familiar to film audiences for his role in the first three Terminator films, playing the endlessly tormented Dr. Peter Silberman in The Terminator, T2: Judgment Day, and Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines. With a track record spanning sitcoms, dramas, video games, action movies, and pretty much anything else an actor might’ve put his talents toward in the second half of the 20th century, Boen accrued almost 300 credited roles across a 40-plus year career. Per Variety, he died this week in Hawaii, after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last year. Boen was 81.
Boen made his name first and foremost in TV comedy: His early resumé, from the mid-’70s onward, is dotted with many of the biggest sitcoms of the era, including MASH, Three’s Company, Barnaby Jones, and more. Even as a young man, Boen’s hangdog face and gift for the dour made him a regular presence on shows looking to inject a little wry, glum wit into their ensembles for an episode; although he occasionally settled into a longer role (including a single-season stint on It’s A Living in 1981), Boen would remain a “freelancer” for most of his career.
A brief foray into sci-fi film in 1980 would pay big career dividends, though; Battle Beyond The Stars might mostly be remembered today as Roger Corman’s shockingly blatant attempt to rip-off Star Wars, but it was also where Boen—playing the lead member of a crew of pancake makeup-covered clones—first worked with its art director, an amateur filmmaker and model maker named James Cameron. Four years later, Cameron would cast Boen in his feature film debut, The Terminator.
Condescending, skeptical, and barely stifling a yawn as he interviews a desperate Michael Biehn, Dr. Peter Silberman is the face of disbelieving humanity across the first three Terminator films. It’s a part that drew heavily on Boen’s gifts for comedy, while also being a vital component of the clockwork delivery of Cameron’s time-jumping plot. (It’s Silberman, after all, who asks all the nit-picky questions about time travel and future wars that are likely kicking around in viewers’ heads by this point.) In Boen’s hands, he’s the perfect human villain for a franchise like Terminator: A small, smug little man who continually gets his world blown up by badass renegades and unstoppable killing machines. It was a memorable enough role, in fact, that Boen became the only performer besides Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in all three films, popping up for a brief scene (and then an even quicker escape) in Terminator 3.
That was Boen’s last on-screen role, as it happens, retiring from screen acting at the age of 62. Instead, he put his energies toward his increasingly prolific voice acting career, building on a side of his career he’d been developing since working on the G.I. Joe cartoon in the 1980s. (And, shortly after, a part near and dear to the hearts of adventure game nerds of a certain generation: The Ghost Pirate LeChuck, the villain of Lucasarts’ Monkey Island games, which he would play from 1990 to 2010.) Boen’s deep, rich voice lent itself well to villains, although not exclusively: He also had a semi-regular role on the animated version of Clifford: The Big Red Dog, hearkening back to his career-long love of comedy.
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Aw, RIP. One of my favorite character actors. He did a lot of voice work in World of Warcraft, including all of the race intros, as well as the voice of several important characters, probably the most prominent of which is the voiceover narration for the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic, which still gives me chills 15 years later:
This was one of the first things that came to mind outside of the Terminator franchise. I can’t count how many times I watched that WotLK cinematic. Subsequently, that was about the last time I played WoW. The expansion was pretty decent but I just got burned out by that point and the WoW I remembered so fondly had all but disappeared by the end of Wrath’s run.
He wont be back
He died in winter-LIKE THE DINOSAURS
Ah SHIT he did the voiceover for that cinematic? It’s still one of THE best things produced for a videogame.
Wait… he’s the voice of King Menethil?!?!?!? WHAT!!!! Nooooooooooo. I love the way he speaks, and his lines in that trailer are haunting. It’s the best cinematic WoW has ever put out. I loved his appearance after defeating Arthas/Lich King too. It really helped connect WoW to the previous Warcraft titles in a way that Blizzard has never done since.
Cataclysm had some great aspects (as did the O.G. release, of course) but WotLK was hands-down the pinnacle of World of Warcraft.
I’d say that Wrath was the pinnacle of WoW’s first era. The game and community evolved over the next several years, leading to the second pinnacle, Legion; that expansion really made the world feel vast, alive, and evolving. Don’t get me wrong; I have a ton of nostalgia for Wrath, but I also recognize that a lot of its power comes from how much more expansive and elaborate it was than TBC. It really reached the full potential of what was possible at the time. Mists was pretty good (Pandaria is still my favorite continent to wander around in (although Grizzly Hills is my favorite zone!)), while Cata and Warlords were both fairly disappointing (by WoW standards, anyway). But it was in Legion that the team figured out how to move the game forward, with a strong cadence of fresh content and lots of replayability. Doing all 36 artifact weapon questlines was a lot more fun than building up my garrison 12 times, and they kept adding reasons to go and explore areas of the various zones that I hadn’t really spent time in during 7.0.
We’ll see if Dragonflight holds up; so far it’s pretty strong, and the writing in particular (especially on a lot of the side quests) is exceptionally good and mature. Dragonriding is fun as hell, although I still think they should have held off on granting it until you had completed the main campaign questline at least once; there’s value in spending time on foot going through the zones and learning the terrain before you can just soar over it all. The other day I went to one end of the road into Cloverwood Hollow (in Ohn’aran Plains), turned off the game interface, and took a nice slow stroll through the woods. It was lovely. I’m probably going to do more of that in other places, not just to learn the ground terrain better but because they put a ton of time and effort into making beautiful places this expansion (I love that none of the outdoor zones are hideous wastelands (I’m looking, or rather trying not to look, at you, Maldraxxus)).
That’s fair. I walked away from the game in early 2011 and came back a few months after Warlords for a while and then again right around when Legion launched. There were some truly superb new types of gameplay and narratives, but ultimately it wasn’t the kind of thing I was looking for (also most of the community I spent so much time with in the late 00’s was gone, and that was a big part of my enjoyment.) You’re right about Grizzly Hills, though. The design and narratives in that zone were as good as it gets (I also really liked Sholezar Basin, aka Un’Goro 2.0)
I didn’t know he was the original LeChuck until just now. Dr. Silberman alone was enough to make me sad, but that just takes it up.
Oh hey, he played one of my favorite characters in Kim Possible, Señor Senior Sr.Looking over his filmography, Boen seems to have had a true character actor’s career, never catching a leading role and rarely having a major recurring one, but putting in appearances all across the pop-culture landscape, giving memorable performances in a wide-enough range of films and TV shows for many people to react “Oh, it’s that guy” when seeing him.
I really want to know which G.I. Joe characters he voiced. Off to his IMDb!(Returns from IMDb)He only has one credit: a character named Taurus, who I don’t remember. But I also found out he appeared in 3 episodes of Dexter’s Laboratory, one of my Top 3 Cartoon Network originals.
I wish he’d been able to come back when the character appeared in Sarah Connor Chronicles, and hear him say those lines about how beautiful the T-1000 was. Though Bruce Davison was a quite worthy substitute.
As a mental health professional just starting my shift this morning, I’ve grown to appreciate the difficulties he’s had in doing his job.I’ve also been haunted by the repeated appearance of Austrians but hey family what are you going to do?
I always felt bad for him because I get why he’s so skeptical about all that time-travelling cyborg stories; they do sound unbelievable on paper. But then, he keeps getting hard-to-deny proof of their validity; and his whole world is just shattered. Then, he has to spend years trying to rationalize what he saw. And, when he finally starts to feel normal again, boom… another Terminator shows up shooting shit up; and he’s got to go through it all over again.
Great, great actor. I was a huge fan of his Terminator work which left a huge impression despite his relatively small screen timeHe was really good on his single season of It’s a Living (or Making a Living as it’s inexplicably known for that single year). Again, a relatively minor role (as the restaurant’s chef) but he also left an impression.
The way Cameron used him as audience surrogate was masterful. He gets to ask all the “But what about…?” questions instead of us getting a long-form exposition dump. And his silent reaction to finally seeing the T1000 in action is how pretty much anyone would respond: “this…cannot be happening.”
Such an awesome actor. I knew he did a ton of movies, television, and commercials, but my God, reading his IMDB is like reading a comprehensive list of 80s and 90s television.
We are Nestor. RIP
RIP Nagilum
I was going to say, that can’t be right, because I remember in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, they say Nagilum was named after the actor who played him, Richard Mulligan (from Soap and Empty Nest)—but I guess Mulligan was only the actor they originally wanted to play him. And you have to admit, “Neob” is not nearly as creepy-sounding.(https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nagilum)RIP.
Oh man, Richard Mulligan was so funny in SOAP. That whole generation of actors is now passed. Katherine Helmond was the last one left.
Small factual quibble – Boen didn’t voice LeChuck until 1997 (in fact, no-one did, as none of the Monkey Island games had voice acting until the third one).
It doesn’t surprise me that he was also a small part in Psychonauts as well. I think Tim Schafer was able to get some of the old Telltale actors in that game here and there (iirc Oleander’s VA was the original Max in Sam and Max).
He did get to voice Lechuck in the 1st two games long after the fact, when the Special Editions came out. But yeah, his run with the character would have still started in 1997.
Dr. Peter Silberman: [shuts off the VCR screen on which the police and Sarah have been watching the interview] This is great stuff. I could make a career out of this guy! You see how clever his part is? How it doesn’t require a shred of proof? Most paranoid delusions are intricate, but this is brilliant!I love this scene. He’s so confident he knows the truth, based on conventional thinking, that he can’t even begin to imagine how wrong he actually is.Story of my life.
He’s been terminated. He won’t be back.
He should have gone with Arnie if he wanted to live
I always felt a bit sorry for Silberman. Is he a bit condescending? Sure, but Reese’s story does sound genuinely insane. He doesn’t deserve the shit he goes through just for being dubious.
His previous patient that day may have insisted upon being adressed as Princess Anastasia; Kyle was just another loon off the assembly line, which is exactly how he should play it.
I really like the idea of a cut of that movie which leaves out all of Arnold until much later, so that the viewer truly does have Sarah’s viewpoint that Reese might just be an insane kidnapper. If memory serves, doesn’t she not actually see him until the Club Noir shootout?
Correct; her first time is with the laser site in the middle of her forehead. She hid in the bar because she saw Kyle following her.
100%. This guy works in a state facility and probably hears these stories multiple times per day. What’s more likely, that a biker on PCP punched a hole in a windshield and didn’t feel it, or that it was a robot with super strength?
That happens in movies a lot, where anyone who works for the government, the science/medical fields, or human services is vilified for doing what would be entirely normal and/or professionally required in whatever situation.
Battle Beyond the Stars is a riot. George Peppard flying a spaceship while dringing gin & tonics kills me.
Best part? The G&Ts weren’t in the script.
Nitpick: Battle Beyond the Stars may have ripped off Star Wars visuals (and all the other scifi movies preceding that) but the story was a copy of The Magnificent Seven. And, though the anatomy of the metaphor may be impossible, centering Sybil Danning’s cleavage was yet a middle finger aimed at Star Wars.
Man, this guy was in everything and so much of it was great. RIP to him.Also to Adam Rich, which if you’re an oldster like me, hits close as he was only three yrs younger than me.
Battle Beyond The Stars might mostly be remembered today as Roger Corman’s shockingly blatant attempt to rip-off Star WarsMore likely it was a blatant attempt to rip-off Kurosawa (hence the planet’s name, Akir), one of the many inspirations for Star Wars.
Barnaby Jones was a sitcom? GTFO!
He was great on “Batman: The Animated Series” as ‘Rhino’, lead henchman for The Ventriloquist/Scarface. It always amuses me on the audio commentary when executive producer Bruce Timm points out who is doing the voice and that it’s a total “put-on” voice that sounds nothing like Boen’s real voice. It really is. He did such a perfect job playing this huge monster of a man who is trying to be act tough, but is a bit of a dolt.My favourite dialogue exchange with him in the episode:Scarface: “Which one of you [betrayed me]?”
Rhino: “It ain’t me, boss!”Scarface: “I know it ain’t you, Rhino. You’re too stupid to be a traitor!”Rhino: “Thanks, boss!”
We shall fly LeChuck’s dread flag at half mast.
Boen became the only performer besides Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in all three filmsYeah I don’t think you can say that when there are six of them.
I also pretend that the rest do not exist.
T3 had a lot of problems but Boen’s scene was a highlight. I had not heard that he was returning for a cameo so when he showed up I definitely sat up in my chair and acted out the “Leo DiCaprio pointing” meme.
Battle Beyond the Stars was a blatant ripoff of The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven.
What an amazing character actor. I just re-watched T2 and was reminded what a great screen presence he had. But as a huge fan of those old LucasArts games, I had *no* idea he was the voice of LeChuck! That blows me away! Gotta go back and listen to his voice over work again.