Nice Guy Eddie, dead at 43

Chris Penn was found dead in his home today.

Cintra Wilson had our favorite piece on this particular Penn, from 2004 in Salon:

But then came the jewel in the crown of Christopher Penn’s acting career, and this was Abel Ferrara’s “The Funeral” (1996), where Chris plays a mentally ill suicidal gangster. Either Chris Penn has the best imagination ever captured on film, or the Penn boys’ emotional color wheels are naturally so supremely black that they make Sylvia Plath’s look like sample chips for baby’s bedroom. Chris was able to inhabit a Jungian shadow-self that any sane angel would fear to tread, in such a hardcore and chilling performance it makes it impossible not to presume that he has actually endured some bone-splinteringly dark nights of the soul. This is the apotheosis of Chris Penn. He is an Italian gangster hovering over the open casket of his little brother (Vincent Gallo, an ideal corpse). His face paints an entire road map of emotions. He grabs Gallo’s suit. “My baby brother,” he whimpers, his mouth grimacing in despair. He dissolves into tears. Then, he remembers himself: He’s a mobster. The tears turn ugly. He starts hacking out involuntary grief noises that get louder and louder until they escalate into a screaming, spitting, casket-pounding fury. Christopher Walken and other black-clad, sallow-eyed Italo-actorini try to restrain him. Chris Penn’s bloodshot eyes go momentarily wide and satanic — a murderous plot appears in his brain like a fever blister. Then — he knows it won’t help — he dissolves into blubbering grief again. Then, with a swallow, he snaps his head, pulls himself together, wipes his face, wetly kisses Walken on the face. He is drained, he’s wrecked, but he is OK to go to the buffet table.

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