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Biography
Early acting career
From the mid-1960's through the mid-1970's, Joston worked primarily in television and was often cast as a soldier. He appeared in a number of popular television series including Lassie (in which he had a recurring role), The Virginian, The Rat Patrol, Ironside, The Rookies and McCloud. He also had guest roles in episodes of the short-lived series Longstreet and Ghost Story/Circle of Fear.
Joston appeared in two genre films during this phase of his acting career. The first of his early film roles was that of Billy-Joe, the psychopathic, mother-obsessed, sexually-warped confederate soldier in the western-themed, 1971 exploitation film, Cain's Cutthroats. Joston's intense, disturbing performance stands out in a cast comprised largely of little-known actors.
Joston's second film was the 1975 horror movie, Rattlers, in which his character ranked among the film's "body count." He played a soldier who is attacked by legions of snakes while trying to change a flat tire.
Assault on Precinct 13
Joston is best known for his iconic portrayal of the sardonic, shotgun-toting, anti-hero Napoleon Wilson in Assault on Precinct 13, John Carpenter's 1976, Howard Hawks-inspired, action film. This was Joston's largest film role, and it is considered to have been his best. Joston's singular performance not only conveys Wilson's stoic toughness, but also emphasizes his irreverent, ironic sense of humor and slowly reveals the character's unexpected capacities for loyalty and tenderness, thereby adding emotional depth and humanity to what otherwise could have been a stereotypical "tough-guy" role. Moreover, Joston's performance is often cited as one of the reasons for the film's continued audience appeal nearly three decades after its initial release.
Eraserhead, The Fog, Gunmen's Blues
During the five years following the release of Assault on Precinct 13, Joston appeared in two major films and one independent short film. He played Paul, the beleaguered pencil-factory clerk, in David Lynch's classic 1977 cult film, Eraserhead. He worked with Carpenter again in the 1980 horror film, The Fog, playing the coroner, Dr. Phibes. Shortly afterward, Eric Red, then a young film-maker and a fan of Joston's performance in Assault on Precinct 13, cast Joston in the lead role of the world-weary hitman in Red's 1981 short film, Gunmen's Blues.
Joston also worked on the production crews of two 1978 movies, The Buddy Holly Story and Ruby and Oswald.
Later career
After 1981, Joston got fewer roles, and he stopped acting in 1986, when he was 48 years old. Joston's last film role was in the 1982 B-movie (and Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite), Being from Another Planet, in which he appeared with his Assault on Precinct 13 co-star, Austin Stoker.
The last years of his acting career were spent working in television, where he had guest roles in series such as Hill Street Blues, Spenser: For Hire and Remington Steele, was a voice actor in Showtime's 1985 animated series Washingtoon. His final role was in a 1986 episode of the comedy series Alf.
In the late 1970's, Joston had worked on film production crews when he was between movie roles, and after he stopped acting, he returned to this line of work and made it his full-time career. From 1986 until the mid-1990's, he worked as a driver, driver captain, or transportation captain (sometimes with his son, Shawn Solomon) on television productions and on films such as Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), La Bamba (1987), Lynch's 1990 film Wild at Heart, and The American President (1995).
Death
Joston died of leukemia on June 1, 1998 at age 60. Several months after his death, Joston's friends and family established the F. Darwin Solomon Endowment at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem to commemorate his life and career.
Since the DVD release of Assault on Precinct 13, which has exposed new audiences to Joston's work, many now consider him to have been a vastly underrated actor whose talent was not duly recognized during his lifetime.
Trivia
John Carpenter has said that he had Joston in mind while he was developing the role of Napoleon Wilson. When Carpenter was writing Assault on Precinct 13, he and Joston lived next door to each other in a Los Angeles neighborhood. Having gotten to know Joston and his dark sense of humor, Carpenter felt that his neighbor would make an interesting anti-hero.
In the early 1980's, when Carpenter was involved in negotiations to direct the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel Firestarter, he wanted Joston to play the role of the Native-American assassin, John Rainbird, but when Carpenter was no longer attached to the project (it was ultimately directed by Mark L. Lester), the role of Rainbird was given to George C. Scott.
