Bud Cort died on February 11th, at the age of 77. He was a beloved character actor, one who had a real skill for bringing eccentric characters to life. He became a star briefly with films like Brewster McCloud and especially Harold and Maude but Hollywood never really knew what to do with him. After he was nearly killed in a car accident in 1979, his momentum stalled. Smart directors still cast him because he always gave good performances but he spent most of his career in small roles. (In Heat, he was the obnoxious restaurant manager who drove Dennis Haysbert back into a life of crime.)
When Cort died, most of the stories focused on his performance in Harold and Maude. That was understandable. That said, I’ve always been touched by Cort’s performance in 1970’s MASH and I wanted to take a moment to just express how wonderful I thought he was in the role of Private Boone.
Though he had previously appeared in two earlier films, Cort got an “introducing” credit for his role in MASH. He played Boone, a usually quiet corpsman who speaks with a slight stutter. When a patient in Post-Op develops complications, Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) tells Boone to get a cardiac needle. Boone obviously isn’t sure what Burns needs but Burns snaps at him to get it. When Boone comes back with a needle, the patient has already died. Burns calls Boone an idiot for getting the wrong needle. Burns offers to get a nurse. “It’s too late, Boone,” Burns says, motioning at the dead man, “you killed him.” Burns walks away as Boone, a look of shock on his face, tries not to cry.
And I have to admit that I want to cry with him. It’s one of the more shocking scenes in Altman’s film and it works because of not only Robert Duvall’s memorably nasty turn as Burns but also Bud Cort’s emotional vulnerability of Boone. Boone, who is in Korea because he was drafted, has not only seen a man die but he’s been told that he’s responsible. With just the slightly cocking of his head and the sniffling of a young man who doesn’t want to cry on duty, Bud Cort shows us just how devastated Boone is.
And, of course, Boone was not responsible. Trapper John (Elliott Gould) takes one look at the patient’s chart and sees that it was Burns’s own incompetence that is to blame. When Trapper punches out Burns, it’s a cathartic moment. The only thing you regret is that Boone wasn’t in the room to see it.
That was Bud Cort’s big moment in MASH, though he appears throughout the film. Indeed, if you watch carefully, there’s a subplot in which Boone starts dating one of the nurses and eventually becomes much more confident in himself. We don’t know much about Boone but we do see that he’s become a member of the gang. Unlike Burns or David Arkin’s Sgt. Vollmer, Boone is accepted by the inhabitants of the Swamp.
He even gets to attend the mock suicide of Painless.. Reportedly, Boone’s line of “You’re throwing away your whole education,” was improvised on the spot by Bud Cort.
Ah, Bud Cort. Rest in peace, you wonderful actor.
