Tom Waits Tickets?tom Waits in the Movies
Tom Waits tickets are now available and can be bought or sold at Stubhub.com!
Though better known for his trademark gravelly voice and roughneck, Charles Bukowski-esque looks, Tom Waits has put his most outstanding traits to work for him as a musician, but also as a presence in film.
As an actor, he’s taken bit parts and cameos, as well as contributed music to soundtracks, since the ‘70s on television (he appeared as himself on “Saturday Night Live,” among many other shows during that decade). His music has been featured in film since 1980, when his song “An Invitation to the Blues” was used as the intro to Nicholas Roeg’s time-hopping drama “Bad Timing.”
He’s had a number of tiny roles, usually as barflies and ne’er do wells—he even plays a drunken bar owner in the (terrible) 1981 werewolf movie “Wolfen.” But it wasn’t until he met up with Francis Ford Coppola that he began to appear regularly. Composing the music for Coppola’s lost-then-rediscovered classic, “One From the Heart,” he finally put his cinematic music in cinema. He appeared briefly in Coppola’s early ‘80s films, including “One From the Heart,” “The Outsiders,” and the monochrome, street-gang cult classic “Rumble Fish.” He also appeared in “The Cotton Club,” another Coppola picture.
While all of these were bit roles with funny one-liners and quips, it gave Waits exposure in the independent film world. He soon began appearing in Jim Jarmusch’s early films, including “Down By Law” and lending his voice as the DJ in “Mystery Train.”
These cemented his image as an indy film presence, though he has taken on more commercial roles as well, like in 1990’s “The Two Jakes,” 1991’s “The Fisher King” and 1999’s “Mystery Men.” All of these were brief but comical roles, and surely a pleasure to play.
While Tom Waits tickets were selling well through all this time, he still had some juicy roles that kept him from spending all his time touring. In Coppola’s “Dracula,” he played the infamous vampire’s mad servant, a fly-nibbling idiot. In “Short Cuts,” he had a meaty role, playing a drunken lout in a painful marriage that earned him not just recognition, but acclaim for his acting ability.
