Art LaFleur is the kind of guy you might look at as your favorite but kind of odd uncle, even though the guy has been solid throughout most of his roles, of which he’s had plenty. Just looking down his resume one can see that this guy has played a lot of different parts, which makes him one of the better character actors around. He’s taken on so many different persona’s that one has to wonder how he keeps them all straight, and yet for all that, a lot of people don’t know his name. It’s definitely easy to think that people would know where they’ve seen him before, since he’s been in so many movies at this point in his career that trying to name them all would take a while, and it’s fair to think that a lot of people might not even get them all. The thing is that he’s switched it up quite a bit throughout the years as he’s been the good guy and the bad guy, switching it up now and again as he’s taken that slightly goofy look and made it into something that people look past as they note his character and go from there when it comes to enjoying the show he puts on.
He’s played a couple of baseball roles in his time as he took on the role of Chick Gandil in Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. A lot of baseball fans might know the story of Gandil since he and seven other players were caught up in the Black Sox Scandal a little over a century ago. In the movie, he played a rather affable character since not a lot was made of the issue, if anything at all, and the focus was primarily on the conversion of a cornfield into a baseball diamond that would feature older players, or what people thought were great representations of them, that people could pay to watch. The story didn’t really feature Gandil as a primary character, but he was one of those that made it fun all the same. The other big baseball role he played was in the time-honored movie The Sandlot, which is still near and dear to a lot of people since it was a great movie growing up, and for those of us born anywhere from the 50s to 70s, it was still a pretty good approximation of how we spent our free time now and then. He played the role of The Babe, aka Babe Ruth, for a brief period of time in the movie as he showed up to give Benny the inspiration he needed to outrun The Beast, the giant dog that had taken a prized baseball and wouldn’t give it back. Of course, now that we look at this movie as adults it’s easy to think that the guys could have just gone over and asked for it back, but hey, kids don’t always think this way.
He’s been the villain as I mentioned as well since his time in the movie Death Warrant with Jean Claude Van Damme saw him play the part of Sergeant DeGraf, the cruel and sadistic guy in charge that made it a point to let people know that he was the guy that would make their lives miserable if they stepped out of line. Of course, putting him up against JCVD wasn’t much of a challenge since once it was time for his character to get killed it wasn’t all that hard. Another fun role to watch was when he played 1st Sgt. Williams in the movie In the Army Now since he was able to play a tough guy again even though the movie was a comedy. For a Pauly Shore movie it wasn’t too terribly bad, but watching it again might change that belief simply because, well, Pauly Shore movies don’t always age that well. But Art’s part in the movie is still just as effective as it’s always been since the guy can deliver when he needs to and he’s usually one of the most professional guys on the set. He does know how to have fun and laugh though, and this was proven when he took on the role of the Tooth Fairy in two of the three Santa Clause movies since he showed up in the second one and had a smaller part in the third.
Art has had quite the career and it does appear that he’s been slowing down a bit in the last few years. It does make sense considering the guy is in his late 70s and it’s easy to think that a lot of people that are getting up there in age might be considering if they really want to stick around or if it’s time to start thinking about retirement. Whatever happens, he’s still one of the more memorable faces in Hollywood.
