For over 30 years, Randy Quaid was one of Hollywood’s most colorful and dependable character actors. His career got off to a propitious start with his appearance in Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic “The Last Picture Show,” and quickly took flight when he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of the sensitive, soon-to-be-imprisoned screw-up Meadows in “The Last Detail.” 10 years later, Quaid achieved film doofus immortality as the loan-seeking rube Cousin Eddie Johnson in Harold Ramis’ “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” Quaid had been funny in movies before, but now he was a proper drama-comedy double threat, and his brand of performance wasn’t the type to curdle. He had a long, profitable journey ahead of him provided he didn’t do something crazy like accuse the industry’s most powerful people of trying to kill him.
Randy Quaid’s downfall was so surreal it felt like performance art like he was playing Cousin Eddie on peyote. Quaid managed to amass a load of legal trouble which forced him to flee with his wife Evi to Canada, where he made a disturbing documentary and numerous YouTube videos, including one where he and Evi had (fake) sex. No one’s kink-shaming here. If he wanted to segue into adult films, more power to him. It’s what was being said on these videos that kicked them over the line.
Why did Quaid’s career take such a bizarre turn? I’m no psychiatrist, but I’ll do my best to make sense of something that is decidedly nonsensical.