After he retired from football, movies kept paying the rent. Hollywood was not the right place for John Matuszak if he wanted to go straight edge.
“I’ve hit damn near bottom,” he wrote in his autobiography. Multiple attempts at going straight were doomed to failure - twice he left rehab centres early and fell off the wagon. He was a therapist’s dream.” (Matuszak had two brothers, both born with cystic fibrosis one died at birth, the other at just two years old). “He had a lot of childhood stuff to deal with. “The man was in a lot of emotional pain,” said former partner Stephanie Cozart. In his autobiography, 'Cruisin’ With The Tooz’, he lists six separate auto incidents that led to convictions, including drug possession, drink-driving charges, collisions with parked cars and two arrests for concealing weapons, which landed him in jail – he also wrapped his Cadillac around a telegraph pole the night he retired due to injury. It wasn’t as if Matuszak didn’t know he was dancing with the devil. Eyes glaring and muscles bulging, he would let out that roar and it would rattle glasses on the bar and just freeze everyone solid. “ particularly enjoyed stomping into the gay bars in San Francisco and scaring the s*** out of everyone in them. That tended to get everyone’s attention,” wrote former teammate Ken Stables. “I don’t know how many times I’ve seen The Tooz walk into a bar, grab his shirt with both hands, rip it open to the waist and growl like a lion at the top of his lungs. His drink was triple Crown Royal with a beer backer. He thought his body was so large, it would absorb it. “He just couldn’t control himself,” said former Raiders employee Mike Ornstein. Though his exterior was gentle and polite, his addictions ran through his veins. After the break-up and a night of heavy drinking, the Tooz necked two sleeping pills at a bar and almost died – it was only his coach pounding him on his chest in the ambulance on the way to the hospital that kept him alive.
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Later, in his fourth professional football season, his girlfriend attempted to run him over with her car.
As a university football player, he beat up a fellow student so badly he caved his face in, all because of a perceived slight on Matuszak’s girlfriend. Such aggression just became part of Matuszak’s personality – the crutch which Robiskie broke over his head was mounted on the wall and labelled 'Biskie’s Tooz Pick’.Īn awkward beanpole growing up, Matuszak grew into a fearsome young man, one whose wrong side you didn’t want to find yourself on. On one occasion, after a playful argument with Raiders assistant coach Terry Robiskie, Matuszak slapped his former teammate hard in the face and began shaking him – it took the whole team to prize them apart. His intake was legendary – he could either make it a night to remember or a night to forget. A defensive end who could stand up and shut down even the most mountainous of opponents, Matuszak won two Superbowls with the Raiders before retiring in 1982 and moving into movies.ĭespite his popularity with fans, Matuszak – known as 'The Tooz’ – was not hugely popular with his teammates, due to an addiction to painkillers and other narcotics brought on by crippling back pain. However, it wasn’t until he was traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1976 that he really started to make waves (Sloth would later wear a Raiders T-shirt in 'The Goonies’). The Wisconsin native got his first taste of fame in the NFL in 1973, when he was picked in the draft and joined the Houston Oilers. The term 'larger than life’ seems woefully inadequate for a man of Matuszak’s stature at 6'7 and 280 lbs he towered over everyone he met, and his booming laugh pounded them into submission. John Matuszak, the actor who so memorably played disfigured giant Sloth, died just four years after the release of the movie, hiding a past of drug and alcohol abuse from the Hollywood spotlight.
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Sadly, at the heart of the movie lies a very sad story indeed. The young cast had more than its fair share of characters: from a teenage Josh Brolin to an already-famous Corey Feldman to proto-hobbit Sean Astin, 'The Goonies’ – now 30 years old – feels like one of those dyed-in-the-wool genre classics, the kind you just can’t make any more. Lovable ‘Goonies’ giant Sloth is about as iconic a movie character as it’s possible to be, but the man behind the make-up lived a tragic life worthy of its own Hollywood story.Įvery time a noteworthy anniversary rolls around, it’s fun to catch up with the stars of Richard Donner’s seminal 80s adventure 'The Goonies’.
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