Dern it!

I recently sent around an article about Bruce Dern and his role in the new movie Nebraska. Two readers asked how I am related to Bruce. I am not. He is Other Mama's nephew, and while he was at Penn, he would occasionally come out to see the folks in Chestnut Hill. One summer, while I was there visiting Pete, we saw quite a lot of him. Several times he took us to movies, westerns, and when we got back, he would practice stunts, like getting shot on the upstairs landing and crashing down onto a small loveseat below. It was great entertainment for us.
One day we went across the lane to the Cricket Club golf course with Bruce. We were messing around on the practice putting green when a guy from the pro shop came down and tried to kick us off. Bruce turned to him with a menacing sneer, and said, in that memorable high register tone, "Don't get a hardnose over it, buddy." I believe we stayed.
He has great range as an actor.  In what I believe was his first movie, a biker B or C flick, he played a corpse that was carried around from place to place. And once we took Flash to New Canaan to see "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte." Bruce was murdered, and his head fell out of a box and rolled down the stairs.