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I loved Roddy in THEY LIVE, and I'm so sad to learn that he died so young.
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Never watched WWF, but i have fond memories of him in 'They Live'.
R.I.P. Roddy
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I also saw him in 1987's charming Buy And Cell, scored by Mark Shreeve.
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Roddy Piper appeared in a number of films over the years, the first being 1986's BODY SLAM, directed by Hal Needham. In this film, "Harry Smilac" (Dirk Benedict) is a down-on-his-luck music manager who is having a hard time attracting talent and booking gigs for his band. When making arrangements for a campaign fund-raiser, he mistakes "Rick Roberts" (Roddy Piper), a professional wrestler, for a musician and hires him. At that moment he becomes a wrestling manager and starts to book matches for him. MCA released an LP of rock tracks from the film, but it didn't include any of the score from Michael Lloyd and John D'Andrea.
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Piper had a small role as a preacher in the television film "Highway Man," which starred Sam Jones and was aired by NBC on 20 September 1987 . The film was written and directed by Douglas Heyes ("North and South") and served as the pilot for a 1988 NBC series that lasted only 2 months. Stu Phillips scored the film.
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I also saw him in 1987's charming Buy And Cell, scored by Mark Shreeve.
In BUY & CELL, Robert Carradine plays a broker framed for stock fraud, who opens up a investment operation from his prison cell. Piper played one of the prisoners, "Cowboy," a character perhaps named after his long-time bodyguard, wrestler "Cowboy" Bob Orton. This 1987 comedy, which played at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, went straight to video in most of the world, but eventually had a brief U.S. theatrical release in 1989.
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Piper had his first lead role in the 1988 exploitation classic HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN. The film portrays a radioactive future in which almost all men have been rendered sterile. One of the men who can still "perform" is the rough and ready "Sam Hell" (Piper). Sam signs a contract with a female government to head into Frogtown to rescue a band of fertile women who have been seized by the vicious amphibious leader, "Commander Toty" (Brian Frank).
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In John Carpenter's 1988 film THEY LIVE, Piper had the lead role as "Nada," a construction worker who discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth.
The opening titles credit the screenplay to "Frank Armitage," a pseudonym used by Carpenter for this film. Carpenter did not feel comfortable accepting a writing credit for the screenplay, because, in addition to input from Piper and associate producer Sandy King, most of the material had come from Ray Nelson's short story, "Eight O'Clock in the Morning."
Carpenter cast Roddy Piper after seeing him in his retirement match at Wrestle Mania III. Carpenter saw in the wrestler's scared yet kind face a man who has "lived life" and who could project a desirable point of view different from the typically glamorous Hollywood leading man. Carpenter acknowledged that similarities between Piper and his character-to-be factored into his casting decision. However, he maintained that Nada's specific traits were based on an unidentified childhood friend of his, not on Piper.
Martial arts expert/stunt coordinator Jeff Imada composed the action scenes and stunts in THEY LIVE. However, Carpenter and Piper collaborated with Imada on the lengthy fight sequence between Piper and Keith David, which lasts more than five minutes. According to Piper, Carpenter was motivated by a desire to upstage the drawn out fight scene in John Ford's THE QUIET MAN. The director even had Piper view the film in preparation for the scene. According to Carpenter, Piper worked with David on the fight choreography, which included some of Piper's old wrestling moves, for a month and a half, to the point that actual contact occurred during filming.
Piper contributed more than simply his wrestling know-how. In an interview with science fiction/horror blog "Drunken Zombie," Piper attested that, at Carpenter's request, he improvised the line in the bank in which Nada proclaims: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum." Reportedly, he took the line from a list of ideas he had for his pro wrestling interviews.
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"Tagteam" was a 1991 television pilot in which two wrestlers, played by Roddy Piper and Jesse "The Body" Ventura, are fired after refusing to throw a match. After stopping a grocery store robbery, they get the idea to become cops. So begins a new chapter in the life of this tag team.
Although the show was originally guaranteed a 13-episode run, Carolco Pictures (who co-produced the show) got caught up in a lawsuit that was unrelated to the program. It was put on the back burner while the lawsuit was ongoing, and the project was ultimately abandoned. The one-hour pilot was burned off by ABC on a Saturday night in January 1991.
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In 1993's BACK IN ACTION, Piper played "Frank Rossi," a cop who helps an ex-Green Beret (Billy Blanks) to extricate his sister from the clutches of a mobster. This Canadian production was shot in Toronto.
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IMMORTAL COMBAT saw Piper co-starring with martial arts star Sonny Chiba in a tale of two cops who seek revenge when a colleague is killed, only to stumble across a Pacific island where a mysterious company is making nearly immortal warriors out of deceased fighters. Meg Foster, who had co-starred with Piper in THEY LIVE, also appears in this 1994 film. Shooting took place in Mexico.
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Piper re-teamed with Billy Blanks for 1995's TOUGH AND DEADLY, another direct-to-video action film. Piper plays "Elmo Freech," a private investigator who is contracted by "John Portland" (Blanks), a CIA agent who suffers amnesia, in order to uncover a drug smuggling ring involving high-ranking CIA officials.
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In 1995's NO CONTEST, Piper played "Ice," one of the henchmen of "Oz" (Andrew Dice Clay), a criminal who takes several beauty pageant contestants hostage since one of them is a rich senator's daughter. The film was directed by Paul Lynch (PROM NIGHT) and scored by Paul Zaza (A CHRISTMAS STORY).
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Piper's third video release of 1995 was JUNGLEGROUND, in which he starred as a street-toughened member of the police vice squad who works in a nasty area of a Canadian city called the "Jungleground." There he comes across a gang called the Ragnarocks, and their leader, Odin, who is inspired by Vikings and works out of a hideout called Valhalla. This Canadian sci-fi thriller was shot in Toronto.
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1996 was just as busy as 1995 for Piper on the video front. His first offering was MARKED MAN, in which he played an auto mechanic who goes to prison after killing the drunk driver that ran down his fiancee. While locked up, he is framed for the murder of a fellow inmate. Escape is the only possible way to find out all the answers in the convoluted plot to kill that inmate, and find the proof to convict the true killers.
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TERMINAL RUSH (1996) follows the exploits of sheriff Don "The Dragon" Wilson as he infiltrates a hijacked Hoover Dam to save his father, who was taken hostage. The hostage-takers are played by Michael Anderson Jr. and Roddy Piper. The film was an early scoring assignment for David Lawrence (AMERICAN PIE).
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In 1996's SCI-FIGHTERS, Piper plays Boston police detective "Cameron Grayson," who searches for "Adrian Dunn" (Billy Drago), his ex-partner who murdered his wife. Since the film is set in the far future (2009!!), Dunn has escaped from prison on the moon and returned to Earth with an alien virus. Filming took place in Montreal.
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Piper co-starred with Tawny Kitaen in 1997's DEAD TIDES. In this thriller, Piper plays a tough, honorable former Navy SEAL who gets more than he bargained for when he accepts a job captaining a ship for a mysterious, sexy woman who turns out to be the wife of a ruthless drug kingpin. Bob Christianson ("Sex and the City" series) scored the film.
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