Hy Pyke was an American character actor born in Los Angeles, California on the 2 December 1935, to David Pyke and his wife Pauline. He majored in theater at the UCLA in the 60's, appearing in numerous student films including Ray Manzarek's thesis film The Induction, which also featured The Doors vocalist Jim Morrison in a brief role. At the time Pyke was also associated with Del Close and his theater group The Committee.
From the UCLA, Pyke moved on to have a long and strange career in off-the-beaten path independent, low-budget films in various genres. He developed a completely unique, manic style of acting that always, for better or worse, stole the show in whatever film Pyke was in. Some of Pyke's most memorable performances were Uncle Benny in The First Nudie Musical, the bus driver in Lemora: A Child's Tale Of The Supernatural, Sancho Panza in The Amorous Adventures Of Don Quixote And Sancho Panza, Bebe Rebozo in the seldom seen The Way He Was, and Mayor Daley in Dolemite.
Besides his film work, Pyke kept active in theater, musical revues, etc. He also wrote poetry (whether or not any was ever published in print is unknown) and plays. He was sometimes credited as Monty Pike, Hy Camp, and Hy Pike.
As the 80's progressed, Pyke's acting career slowed down and he moved over to TV commercials.
Pyke's best-known role remains Taffey Lewis in Blade Runner. (A bit of trivia... Director Ridley Scott is well known for asking his actors to shoot the same scene literally dozens of times in order to get the perfect take. But in Blade Runner, Hy Pyke only needed to reshoot his performance one time and Scott was satisfied.)
Pyke last lived in Los Angeles performing as a nightclub comedian and senior citizen entertainer (his long-running act was known as Hy Pyke's Fairfax Follies) after surviving leukemia and quadruple bypass surgery. In 2004, he contributed to a book about obscure 70's genre films, Gods In Polyester, reminiscing on Lemora, Dolemite, and others, in a style very much in tune with his persona on the big screen. Gods In Spandex, a sequel to Gods In Polyester focusing on lesser covered independent genre films from the 80's, also features a piece by Pyke on Hack-O-Lantern. Pyke recently appeared in a new film for the first time in years, The Serious Pursuit of Happiness, which premiered in 2006. Sadly, Hy Pyke passed on at some point in 2007.
Gods In Polyester is now practically sold out, and there are no definite plans on if the book will ever be reprinted. As a tribute to the genius of Hy Pyke, we the editors have chosen to make his contributions to Polyester free for everyone to read in the blog.
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NOTE VERSION 2.0: If you knew and/or worked with Hy Pyke and have any relevant materials or photos which you would like to see included on this tribute page, drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
***** NEWS FLASH: Hy Pyke wrote pieces on Hack-O-Lantern and Blade Runner for the new film book Gods In Spandex , which has just been released and is now available for purchase from the Headpress website . They also still have copies of Gods In Polyester in stock if you would like to buy that as well. Plus the nice Headpress folks ship worldwide and offer two different postage options to make it affordable for everyone. Thank you for your support! *****