The late TV and film actor Dick Van Patten was best known as the patriarch of the Eight is Enough clan, a family man in a long line of TV family men whose wife was way too attractive for him. Van Patten, of course, tipped the scales with charm, making the match somewhat plausible. But the picture of Dick Van Patten as a charming wholesome family fellow misses the late actor’s range and ambition. Before Van Patten began managing the octet, he acted in many far different vehicles like Richard Fleischer‘s rebellious, futuristic, apocalyptic Soylent Green
The Soylent Green cast is as weird and compelling as the 1973 film itself. It starred Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Dick Van Patten, Chuck Connors and Joseph Cotten. And of course Leigh Taylor-Young.
