"Got a smoke?" Darwin Joston secured himself a permanent place in cult movie history with that particular laconically witty line as laid-back Death Row-bound convict Napoleon Wilson in John Carpenter's outstanding urban action thriller classic Assaut (1976). Wilson was undoubtedly Joston's best role, and he played it with exceptional skill: mellow, low-key and disarmingly casual with a cool sense of dry ironic humor and a wickedly funny way with a sardonic wisecrack. Joston's terrific portrayal of the acidic and fatalistic Wilson should have led to bigger and better things. Alas, it did not.
He was born as Francis Darwin Solomon on December 9, 1937, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His parents were Mary Elizabeth Smith and Buford Odell Solomon. Joston attended Glenn High School in Kernersville, North Carolina, where he was considered a talented athlete. Following graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1960, Darwin moved to New York and began acting in stage plays and summer stock productions for about five years in the early to mid 1960s. He then moved to Los Angeles to continue his acting career.
Compared to his substantial starring role in "Assault on Precinct 13," most of Joston's other film parts were relatively small: he's an ill-fated soldier in the dreadful killer snake dud Les serpents attaquent (1976), a beleaguered pencil-factory clerk in Eraserhead (1977), a drunken truck driver in Coast to Coast (1980), a coroner in the splendidly spooky Fog (1980) and a typically relaxed FBI agent in the entertainingly crummy science-fiction/horror hoot Time Walker (1982) (Joston was reunited with his fellow "Assault on Precinct 13" cast member Austin Stoker in this latter picture).
Joston also did guest spots on such TV shows as ALF (1986), Capitaine Furillo (1981), Les enquêtes de Remington Steele (1982), Spenser (1985), The Rookies (1972), Un shérif à New York (1970), Ghost Story (1972), L'homme de fer (1967), Commando du désert (1966), Lassie (1954) (in which he had a recurring role) and Le Virginien (1962). In addition to his acting credits, Joston worked behind-the-scenes as either a driver or a transportation captain on such features as Le président et Miss Wade (1995), Sailor & Lula (1990), La Bamba (1987), Back to the Beach (1987), The Ladies Club (1986), Le clochard de Beverly Hills (1986) and The Buddy Holly Story (1978).
Darwin Joston died of leukemia on June 1, 1998. Although he's no longer with us, Joston nonetheless will forever live on in our hearts and memories as the supremely amiable, if notorious, killer criminal Napoleon Wilson. "Got a light?"
