If you are a child of the 80s, chances are you know Mark Holton's face, if not his name. With roles as the villainous Francis Buxton in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," the affable Chubby in "Teen Wolf," and The Guy Who Says "It's Enrico Pallazzo!" in "The Naked Gun," Holton is a noted character actor, and a fixture in the "Where Are They Now?" club.
Holton will be coming to HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis Sept. 6-9, where he will be hobnobbing with fans and other visiting celebrities. In this interview he discusses his famous roles, being a famous fat guy in the 80s, and watching Mr. T steal a bicycle at a party.
Can you talk a little about HorrorHound. Do you do a lot of conventions?
This is my maiden voyage. Yeah, this is my first time. I’ve been pretty ignorant of the whole situation for many years, and I heard about them and thought ‘this looks like a lot of fun.’ I hope it goes well. I’m pretty excited.
Is this your first visit to Indianapolis?
I have been to Indianapolis. It’s a big reason of why we are talking today. I was in a competition for the Forensic League in Dramatic Interpretation. I believe that was 1975 at Ben Davis High School. I got to drive on the Indy 500 track. I was in a 1972 Country Squire station Wagon. I think I got up about 55 mph.
You’ve butted up to a few of the more iconic movies between the 80s and 90s especially. Can you talk about some of your roles? These are movies people still watch and remember and are ingrained in pop culture many years later.
That was a really fun time. I am just amazed that these movies have held up and people remember the dialog by heart. I did a fundraiser recently, and people were bringing their children. It was a second generation of fans I guess you could say. It’s just mind-boggling to me and I feel very fortunate that people love those movies so much. The one that kind of freaks me out is that I did my little thing for “The Naked Gun.” I was there about half a day, and I said my little line and left, forgot about it, got my little paycheck, and went on with my life, and I was walking down Hollywood Blvd. one day and this guy pulls up, rolls his window down, and shouts “look! It’s Enrico Pallazzo! You’re the guy!” I said “wow! The movie must be out!”
And that movie is so…what is it about that? For me it was big in part because it was you saying it. I was a huge “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” fan growing up, and suddenly it’s your face there out of nowhere. But the callback to the joke made that line so memorable.
Oh, that whole sequence just gets funnier and funnier as it goes on. You have Mrs. Presley there, then the next shot is a bad dummy being dragged up the steps. Every time I watch that, especially that sequence, just kills. It’s tremendous.
And that scene’s whole build is to your punchline to this really small joke that was set up so well.
Well, I had been a big fan of Leslie Nielsen and the filmmakers, and I didn’t get to meet him that day, but I worked with him on a sitcom, and I just loved him to death. He was a guy you’d want as your neighbor.
Being a big guy myself, a lot of roles in the 80s were were kind of a notable fat guy, like me, though I’m much less notable than you. But Francis Buxton, his weight was maybe secondary, but in “Teen Wolf” your character was called Chubby. Can you talk about playing that in the 80s? Was that something you thought about as you were getting into the movies?
I was always a big guy. I was about 190-210 in high school, and by the time I got to Hollywood I’d gained even more weight. I think it kept me out of a lot of jobs, but if I’d dropped down to normal weight, I doubt I’d have worked as much, so you never know.
Let’s talk about Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, that movie was just so bonkers, and your part is arguably the best thing about it.
Well, Francis is such a good villain, and I based him on someone I knew, and he just kind of came out. I was very lucky in that movie.
Did you know Tim Burton was going to be the iconic filmmaker he has become?
Oh, no. You just never know. I thought he was a great guy, but who could have predicted he would have that success? I think you can say that about the whole movie. It was a blur. All of a sudden I’m auditioning, and then I’m suddenly on the film set. There were just a lot of people there, of course one of the writers are Phil Hartman, so I got to know him. I loved him to death, but one of the strangest things for me, as a small town boy, was the opening night party. It was live on MTV, and I’m just starstruck. At one point I’m kind of sitting back, watching Mr. T steal a bicycle, ride it around like a child, crashing into tables, and I’m standing between Alice Cooper and Rodney Dangerfield. And I’m thinking “How did I get here?!?”
What are some of the roles that you maybe almost had, or could have had, but it just didn’t happen for whatever reason. It occurred to me that in some alternate universe somewhere there is a version of “Beetlejuice” that exists with you playing Otho.
That’s an interesting question that you should ask that. I stayed in touch with Tim, and we were supposed to have lunch, and he was going to show me the script, and he switched studios and he just never called me. And the guy who got the role was a guy I knew. He was my understudy at the Odyssey Theater when we were doing theater in LA. I thought he was a perfect choice, and I think he was better suited for the role. No one would have played it like he did. It’s funny you ask me that. I hadn’t even thought of those days.
Is there anything you’re looking to do at HorrorHound? Being a part of the convention? Any people you are hoping to meet?
Oh, yes, I have a long list of people I’m hoping to meet. I knew Cassandra Peterson. Of course, she was in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and she was Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and I’ll be glad to see her again after all this time.
That’s right! She was in the biker bar scene!
Yeah, and there’s a perfect example of taking one line, and turning it into a really memorable role. She’s a very talented actress. A really talented lady.
Okay, one more question for you, and this will be my “Chris Farley Show” moment: I didn’t realize how subversive that movie was. I watched it all through my childhood. But the scene where Pee Wee was with Simone in the dinosaur, and her boyfriend was stalking them, and he hears her say “Pee Wee, no one has ever put it to me like that before,”
{laughs}
And I saw that movie a hundred times, but it wasn’t until I was an adult watching that movie with my kids that I got that. But that movie is so great.
Oh, that’s hilarious. And feel free to keep going.
Can you talk about “Teen Wolf”? Michael J. Fox at that time was one of the hottest stars on the planet.
Oh yeah, he was doing “Back to the Future” and finishing that movie at the same time. He was in the Number One and Three movies of that summer.
Any memories you can share of that movie?
Well, the locker room scenes were kind of difficult to get through. People were cracking up. But the strangest thing that happened, was the scene where I’m holding the ball, and I have no idea what to do with it, and the guy says “shoot it, fat boy,” and the camera is on me, so you couldn’t see when I toss it, and I can’t play basketball to save my life, but on that one take, the ball went swish right through. And I said “I can’t believe I just did that!”
You’ve done a lot of TV over the years, but I was looking through your filmography, and you have just a couple of credits per year, and a lot of these just one-off TV show episodes. What have you been doing all these years when you’re not jumping in front of a camera?
Anything and everything, really. During “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Teen Wolf,” I was helping the maintenance man at these rental houses. I was helping him keep up the properties. We some kind of plumbing issue where this lady had her family over and her toilet was clogged up, and we unearthed the sewer line, and it was flooding her flower bed, so I’m down on my hands and knees, bathed in shit, dipping turd water out of her garden. And the lady comes out, smoking a cigarette, wearing curlers, and looks at me and goes “you know what, you look just like a guy in a movie I took my kids to last night.” And the guy I was working with said to her “That’s him!” I don’t know if she thought he was bullshitting her or not, but she just turned around and went back inside. And I said “oh my God I can’t believe that just happened. But I did all kinds of things. I did some day trading for seven years, a lot of things, and I took time to start a family, and just did a few things here and there. You try to be there for your kids and their activities, so I did that. And then I decided to quit, and then some people took me to South Africa for “Leprechaun Returns,” and while I’m there I’m talking to these actors, and they are talking about these comic cons, and I’m going “hmm, I don’t care about that.” Then they start telling me details, and I think it sounds interesting. And here I am.