Joe Turkel

Sad to hear of Joe's passing. He possessed an engaging, beautiful, passionate soul and carved out his own joyous, triumphant niche in the business. I knew his dad, Ben, down the East Pond Rd., in good ol' Woodridge USA. Another beautiful soul, was he.

I called Joe as a fan on the phone five years ago. I told him how much I liked his work and told him how awesome I thought he was. I have never done this before but, My intuition told me he was a kind man from his interviews. So while talking on the phone we made some common ground as I act part time as a hobby and I am ex military like Joe.
Then I asked if I could send some pictures for him autograph, talk about pushing my luck. He agreed and sent me a bunch of extra pictures signed and personalized. I called him a month later and thanked him. We talked again for a bit and when the conversation came to an end, he said “you’re a very pleasant fellow Canadians are very friendly and by all mean please call again”. After that so we talked every month or couple months for a few mins, not long and it was nice. I sent him a few gifts on his birthday I thought he’d get a kick out of like a reprint Joe DiMaggio rookie card. He loved talking baseball and he loved the gift and even wrote me a thank you letter which I still have. When I flew to L.A from Canada in 2019 we had lunch together and he redid The Shining bar scene and let me play Jack. Universal and Disney land was a bore to that moment. He loved making other people happy. He was very funny and did some great impressions. I consider myself to be very lucky to have known such a kind man who happened to be in some of my favourite movies. My deepest condolences to his close family and friends.

RIP Joe . Thought of you during my stays at the Stanley in Estes Park Colorado . I swear my room was haunted .