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Gailard Sartain, the character actor known for films such as Mississippi Burning and Elizabethtown, has died. He was 78.
The Oklahoma-born actor got his start playing a wizard named Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi in the Tulsa-based comedy show The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting. He rose to nationwide attention through his regular appearances on the country music variety show Hee Haw in the 1970s.
His other credits include several appearances in the Ernest film series, and voicing the New Orleans gangster Big Daddy in an episode of The Simpsons. Sartain was also a successful painter and illustrator.
His death was announced in a Facebook post by The Church Studio, a recording studio in Tulsa where his wife, Mary Jo, is a volunteer.
The studio’s statement reads: “We are saddened by the loss of Gailard Sartain, an extraordinary actor, artist, and comedian. His late night visits in the 1970s to the studio after filming Mazeppa are fondly remembered.
“Gailard's artwork is showcased on the cover of Leon Russell's 1975 album Will O’ the Wisp. Our condolences are with Mary Jo, Gailard's wife and a committed volunteer at The Church Studio.”
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No cause of death has yet been announced.
Sartain was born in Tulsa on September 18, 1946. He originally worked as a cameraman on a local television station before landing his breakthrough role as the wizard Mazeppa. A fellow cast member on The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting was another Tulsa local, Gary Busey, and the pair reunited in 1978 when Busey played the lead in music biopic The Buddy Holly Story while Sartain was cast as The Big Bopper.
In the 1980s, Sartain built a successful career as a film actor, often portraying characters with their roots in the American South. He appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s coming-of-age drama The Outsiders in 1983, the film that launched the Brat Pack. In 1986, he played Chef Paul in the neo-noir The Big Easy, and in 1988, he was Sheriff Ray Stuckey in Mississippi Burning opposite Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe.
He also appeared in three of the Ernest comedies, 1987’s Ernest Goes To Camp, 1988’s Ernest Saves Christmas and 1990’s Ernest Goes To Jail. He made his final film appearance in Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown in 2005, and subsequently continued to work as an artist whose illustrations appeared on album covers and in national magazines.
He is survived by his wife, Mary Jo.
