Walsh marks 50-year reunion

POTSDAM — Actor M. Emmet Walsh turned his self-deprecating humor on his alma mater, the north country, and just about anything else he could think of Friday.

Back in Potsdam for his Clarkson University 50-year class reunion, the TV and film star said he's still working at 73 and has no plans to stop anytime soon.

"I have to do as well as I can. Maybe that's from Clarkson, maybe that's from being Irish, maybe that's from anything in the world. But I don't want to keel over and say, 'I didn't try on that last take,'" he said.

Born in 1935 in Ogdensburg, Mr. Walsh grew up in rural Vermont and went on to become an accomplished character actor after graduating from Clarkson — and spending years fighting his way on the stage in New York City and on screen in Hollywood.

But he was pretty familiar with fighting his way through. At Clarkson, Mr. Walsh quickly realized he wouldn't cut it as an engineer or an accountant.

"Here, you flunk into business," he said. "I saw all the accounting majors sitting around crunching numbers, and all the marketing majors down drinking, and I thought, 'Maybe I'll be a marketing major.'"

The perpetually poor student remembers working nights as the desk clerk at the former Arlington Hotel, before going to an "American short story" class he needed a B in to graduate.

"The professor said, 'Walsh, if you fall asleep in my class again, you're not getting a B.' So we were in this room in Snell Hall, and I'd open the window and put my hand in the snow," he said. "After the final, I get a note from the guy that says, 'OK. Here's your B. I'm not sure about it, but get out of here.'"

For a guy who could barely pass a literature class, Mr. Walsh has no problem pulling anecdotes about Jack London and Robert Frost out of thin air, and reciting Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

"I personally think of myself as a romantic lead," he said with a straight face. "Yeah, I play scruffy. I don't want to play 10 of the same guys in a row. I can play a garbage collector and I can play the president of St. Lawrence. I play a lot of real people."

It's not hard to see why his half-grumpy, half-giddy airs have captivated so many audiences. Even his penchant for off-color humor somehow comes off as charming.

After all, even though he's a self-made multimillionaire with more than 100 films and TV shows under his belt, Mr. Walsh says the best moments of his life weren't on a movie set or in a mansion.

Like the summer he spent pounding railroad tracks as an iron worker, and took a break to eat watermelon under a shady tree — while getting paid overtime. Or the day he finally got himself a bucket of brand-new Titleist golf balls to shoot at the driving range.

"Any actor out there worth their salt would do it for nothing," he said. "I get paid to do what I love."

As people lined up to get an autographed photo of the actor, Mr. Walsh said he'd sign, "Final Potsdam visit."