Quite a character

Character actor James Rebhorn died of melanoma on Friday.

I didn’t even know his name.

Every time I saw him in his more recent television work on Homeland and The Good Wife, or in films like The Box or Baby Mama, I always thought —

“Look — there’s Bradley Raines.“

Raines was the first role that I ever saw Rebhorn portray.  Way back in 1984.  On my favorite soap of all time, The Guiding Light.

Bradley Raines was not a good guy.  A security guard for Spaulding Enterprises in Springfield, he blackmailed his boss. He beat his wife and raped his stepdaughter.  He eventually was thrown into prison and later a psychiatric hospital.

Raines was a soap character that you loved to hate…and Guiding Light kept bringing him back for seven years.  Rebhorn was creepy good.

I’ll miss Bradley Raines.