M. Emmet Walsh died from cardiac arrest on Tuesday at a hospital in St. Albans, Vermont. The ham-faced, heavyset Walsh often played good old boys with bad intentions, as he did in one of his rare leading roles as a crooked Texas private detective in the Coen brothers’ first film, the 1984 neo-noir “Blood Simple” Walsh was raised on Lake Champlain in Swanton, Vermont, just a few miles from the U.