Mel Welles, who created the role of florist Gravis Mushnik in the 1960 cinema classic, Little Shop of Horrors, has died at the age of 81. Mr. Welles worked both in front of and behind the camera in dozens of movies and TV shows but the one people always asked him about was the quirky black comedy directed by Roger Corman in, depending on which account one believes, two or three days. (My understanding is it was two full days plus about ten hours of night shooting.) This was the original version which served later as the basis of the musical comedy. (Interestingly, Welles played the role of Mushnik in a few local productions of the musical not long ago.)
I suppose everyone reading this has seen Little Shop of Horrors but there was a time back in the late sixties when it was the private "find" of a select group of us. It ran often on local television, often in the wee, small hours of the morn, and sounded so unappetizing in TV Guide that few tuned in. But some of us had seen it, come to love it and incorporated select lines of dialogue into our vocabularies. Later, as Jack Nicholson became a bigger star, the film got more attention due to his small, weird role in it. I believe it was one of the first movies released on home video that anyone had ever heard of…and it was about then that its cast members, including Mel Welles, began being hailed for being part of film history.
More can be learned about the career of Mr. Welles over at his website. [BEWARE: Loud, annoying music on the opening screen.] I think it's kinda neat that people are often survived by their websites. Buddy Hackett's is still up, happily proclaiming — as it did before he left us — that Buddy is retired and taking a nap. And at Rodney Dangerfield's site, you can still e-mail him. Maybe we should all bombard him with insults. I think Rodney would appreciate being heckled in the afterlife.