"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 "Assault on Precinct 13." 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 lead to bigger and better things. Alas, it did not.Born on December 9, 1937 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as F. Darwin Solomon, Joston graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Darwin moved to New York after college and began acting in stage plays for about five years in the early to mid 60s. 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 army soldier in the dreadful killer animal dud "Rattlers," a beleaguered pencil-factory clerk in "Eraserhead," a drunken truck driver in "Coast to Coast," a coroner in the splendidly spooky "The Fog," and a typically relaxed FBI agent in the entertainingly crummy science-fiction/horror hoot "Time Walker" (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," "Hill Street Blues," "Remington Steele," "Spenser: For Hire," "The Rookies," "McCloud," "Ghost Story," "Ironside," "The Rat Patrol," "Lassie" (in which he had a recurring role), and "The Virginian." In addition to his acting credits, Joston worked behind-the-scenes as either a driver or a transportation captain on such features as "The American President," "Wild at Heart," "La Bamba," "Back to the Beach," "The Ladies Club," "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," and "The Buddy Holly Story."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?"

He was a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Within several months of Joston's June 1998 death, his friends and family founded the F. Darwin Solomon Endowment at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem in order to commemorate Joston's life and career.Around the time John Carpenter was writing the screenplay that would become Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), he and Joston were neighbors. Carpenter has said that Joston's sardonic sense of humor directly influenced the way Carpenter wrote the Napoleon Wilson character, which Joston later played in the film.In the early 1980s, when John Carpenter was scheduled to direct Firestarter (1984), the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel, Joston was considered for the role of John Rainbird, the Native-American assassin; but after Universal Pictures executives fired Carpenter from the project following the commercial failure of The Thing (1982) and replaced him with Mark L. Lester, the role of Rainbird was given to George C. Scott.He had one son, Shawn Solomon, with whom he worked on the transportation crews of Wild at Heart (1990) and The Night Before (1988). Update PageUpdateYou may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.Add resumeWith our Resume service you can add photos and build a complete resume to help you achieve the best possible presentation on the IMDb.Click here to add your resume and/or your photos to IMDb. Browse biographies section by nameA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z