Character actor Fred Ward, known for role in The Right Stuff, dead at age 79

Veteran movie and tv actor Fred Ward, 79, finest recognized for taking part in gruff, tough-guy roles in films akin to Tremors, Escape from Alcatraz, and The Proper Stuff, died on Sunday, his publicist mentioned on Friday.

No trigger or place of dying was launched, as per his household’s needs, publicist Ron Hofmann mentioned.

Ward took a roundabout method into performing, after serving three years within the U.S. Air Pressure within the Sixties after which working as an Alaskan lumberjack, a boxer (the place his nostril was damaged thrice), and a short-order cook dinner, in line with a biography offered by Hofmann.

His profession spanned greater than 4 many years, beginning with international movies within the early Seventies and stretched by means of 2015 along with his ultimate function within the tv sequence True Detective, in line with his on-line IMBD web page.

He made his first U.S. movie look taking part in a cowboy within the 1975 movie, Hearts of the West. However his breakthrough function got here when he performed reverse Clint Eastwood within the 1979 movie Escape from Alcatraz.

“The distinctive factor about Fred Ward is that you simply by no means knew the place he was going to pop up, so unpredictable had been his profession selections,” the discharge mentioned.

He performed every part from an astronaut, cowboy, Vietnam battle soldier, a chain-smoking police detective-turned-assassin, to a hero battling big worms, the discharge mentioned.

In 1983 he portrayed Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom within the adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s guide, The Proper Stuff. That very same yr he appeared within the motion film Unusual Valor with Gene Hackman and within the drama Silkwood with Meryl Streep.

Ward gained a Golden Globe and the Venice Movie Competition ensemble prize for his efficiency in Brief Cuts in 1993, his biography mentioned.

He’s survived by his spouse of 27 years, Marie-France Ward, and a son, Django Ward.