'The Shining' Bartender Joe Turkel Dead At 94

Actor Joe Turkel passed away at age 94.

His family announced that he had passed away on Monday at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

Although he appeared in Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” he appeared in numerous Stanley Kubrick films and was best known for his role as the bartender in “The Shining.”

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Joe Turkel appears halfway through Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, “The Shining,” which is loosely based on the novel by horror master Stephen King. As Jack Nicholson’s character of Jack Torrance walks into the Overlook Hotel’s empty Gold Room and heads to the bar, he addresses the empty room and asks for a glass of beer.

At that point, the bartender, Lloyd, played by Turkel, suddenly appears and pours him a bourbon, even though Jack doesn’t have any money.

“I like you Lloyd, I always liked you,” Torrance tells him. “You were always the best of them. Best god---ed bartender from Timbuctoo to Portland, Maine — Portland, Oregon, for that matter.”

When Torrance returns to the room later in the film, Lloyd is still behind the bar, although it is now full of party guests from the 1920s.

Although Turkel only speaks 96 words in his two scenes, in 2014, he pointed out that rehearsals took six weeks. He explained that “Stanley was looking for the perfect shot” and that, one day, he was on set from 9 AM to 10:30 PM. When he got home from that take, “I got to my dressing room, took my shirt off, took my T-shirt off and wrung [the sweat] out.”

Turkel’s dressing room was actually right next to Nicholson’s dressing room. In Scott Edwards’ 2018 book “Quintessential Jack,” Turkel recalled how he spotted an open book about the effects of freezing lying on Nicholson’s chest before they filmed his final scene freezing to death in the snow.

“Look, for the last scene, my character freezes and I want to know just how it happens,” Nicolson told him at the time. “I want to get it … feel it … show it … as it is.”

One user tweeted, "R.I.P. Joe Turkel, a phenomenal character actor and Kubrick favorite, also completely unforgettable as Tyrell in Blade Runner."

"Rest in peace to a legend, Joe Turkel, I’ll be pouring one out tonight for my favourite bartender," another fan tweeted.

"Never has an actor made so much impact with such little screen time," another fan tweeted.

Another fan joked, "He was such a great actor I thought he was a real ghost bartender this whole time, now that is unfortunately closer to the truth."

Creator Charles de Lauzirika tweeted, "One of the very first interviews I ever conducted was with Joe Turkel, and it was quite the baptism. He had such a funny and fierce energy in person, but was also a precise, commanding character actor on the screen. As such, he was wonderfully unpredictable. R.I.P. Joe."

Another fan shared a heartfelt memory, sharing, "I met him once to talk about MIRACLE MILE and the deleted scene he shot w/him reciting bits of Dante's "Inferno" as the elevator went down at the end instead of up. Here running lines w/my son."