Dick Tracy Wiki
Register
Advertisement

The man known as "Pushy" Pointer was the agent of actress B.U. Tiffil. Pointer had dark hair and typically wore rings on his fingers. He had a habit of pointing his index finger at people and punctuating his statements with the rhetorical question "Get the point?".

Framing B.U. Tiffil[]

When B.U. Tiffil was new to Hollywood, Pointer agreed to be her agent. He invited her to a party at his home, where she drank to excess and passed out. When B.U. revived, she found that she had a gun in her hand, and that the film producer Walter Wolfe had been shot and killed.

Pointer told B.U. that she had become inebriated and Wolfe had attempted to seduce her. She had gotten angry and taken Pointer's gun (from where he had shown it to her) and killed Wolfe. Pointer agreed to help Tiffil conceal her role in the crime, disposing of the body on a nearby beach.

Tiffil's career did not immediately advance and Pointer stopped representing her. However, Tiffil eventually became very successful (with the help of her husband and manager Sven Galli) and Pointer re-entered her life. Pointer told her that he had sealed the gun (with her fingerprints on it) in a plastic bag and kept it as evidence. He would reveal her part in Wolfe's death unless she agreed to take him as her agent, with Pointer selecting roles for her and taking a percentage of her earnings.

Encountering Dick Tracy[]

When B.U. Tiffil agreed to appear in a play at Vitamin Flintheart's new dinner theater (rather that acting in the movie that Pointer had chosen for her), Pointer became angry. He used his underworld connections to arrange for the professional hitman Nick Nissassa to shoot at B.U. on stage during the play's opening night, believing that this would scare Tiffil into leaving the production. Nissassa was killed while fleeing the scene, so Pointer's involvement was not immediately revealed.

Tiffil secretly took up residence at Sunny Dell Acres under the protection of Dick Tracy and Lizz. While there, she shaped her cousin Sparkle Plenty's hair into a style that matched her own signature look. Pointer, determined to scare Tiffil into leaving the city and returning to Los Angeles, shot at (who he believed to be) Tiffil through a window at Sunny Dell Acres. He hit Sparkle, injuring her.

Pointer himself was severely injured while fleeing the scene, and he was placed under arrest while recovering in the hospital. B.U. Tiffil revealed to Tracy that Pointer had been blackmailing her, but Tracy was confident that Tiffil had not killed Walter Wolfe and that Pointer would face charges in Los Angeles for the crime.

Notes[]

  • It was established that Pushy's brother "Big" Frank Pointer was connected with the Apparatus. The exact nature of Pushy's affiliation with the Apparatus was not explicitly stated.
  • It was implied that Pointer had killed Walter Wolfe on behalf of the Apparatus, and placed the gun in the unconscious B.U. Tiffil's hand as a way of framing her. Dick Tracy seemed fairly certain that B.U. Tiffil would be cleared of the crime, though that would seem to rely on Tiffil having an attorney who could successfully create a sense of Reasonable Doubt in a jury (and diminish Pointer's credibility as a witness).
Advertisement