Actors & Skin: Martin Sheen

It's always interesting to me to see which actors I'm drawn to, when, and most importantly why.  I of course have known of actor Martin Sheen since I was a kid.  I certainly heard of Apocalypse Now and knew of his politics and of course his sons Charlie and Emilio.  I hadn't however, really seen him in much.

I've attempted twice now to binge The West Wing.  I always enjoyed the episodes I watched, (4 so far) but never felt compelled to continue.  I will plow through one of these days, the show is referenced so often, I want to watch more. I watched a few episodes of the first season of Grace & Frankie, but again wasn't really drawn to continue.  I liked it, I just didn't love it.  This show to, I hope to return to at some point.

Flipper (1967)

It was watching and writing about The Little Girl Who Lived Down The Lane that for the first time, had me wanting to see more of Sheen.  Sheen was great in the 1976 horror flick, creepy and totally memorizing in his role as Jodie Foster's far too attentive next door neighbour.

No Drums, No Bugles (1972)

In researching Sheen, despite his long career, he appears to have only two nude scenes on his resume.  I knew of his nude scenes in 1979's Apocalypse Now,  but hadn't seen or heard, of his nude scene seven years earlier in 1972's No Drums, No Bugles. 

In the film, Sheen plays a West Virginia Farmer who objecting to the Civil War, leaves his family to live on his own in a cave in the woods.  As you can see from gif above, at one point Sheen runs naked through a field after taking a dip in a near by pond.  I attempted to find a DVD of the flick, but it was only released on VHS.  The place I could find a copy was on Youtube, which is what I made to make the poor quality caps below.

In researching Sheen for this piece, there were a few, two in particular, of his credits that have me wanting to check out.  The first is Badlands (1973) below, in which he co-stars with Sissy Spacek playing a James Dean like character on a killing spree.  I was also intrigued reading about the 1975 TV movie Born Innocent, in which Sheen plays an escaped mental patient who kidnaps a teenage farm girl (Linda Blair), who eventually becomes his friend and lover.  Both sound like they could be interesting.

Badlands (1973)

'In 1959 a lot of people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people. He was 25 years old. He combed his hair like James Dean. She was 15. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton. For a while they lived together in a tree house. In 1959, she watched while he killed a lot of people.'

The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

'I love the smell of napalm in the morning.'