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

Actor Fred Ward poses on the premiere of his new movie “30 Minutes Or Much less” in Hollywood, California, August 8, 2011. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

Might 13 (Reuters) – Veteran movie and tv actor Fred Ward, 79, greatest recognized for enjoying gruff, tough-guy roles in films corresponding to “Tremors,” “Escape from Alcatraz,” and “The Proper Stuff,” died on Sunday, his publicist mentioned on Friday.

No trigger or place of loss of life 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 prepare dinner, in accordance with a biography offered by Hofmann.

His profession spanned greater than 4 many years, beginning with overseas movies within the early Nineteen Seventies and stretched via 2015 together with his remaining function within the tv collection “True Detective,” in accordance with his on-line IMBD web page.

He made his first American movie look enjoying 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 just 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 little thing from an astronaut, cowboy, Vietnam conflict soldier, a chain-smoking police detective-turned-assassin, to a hero battling large worms, the discharge mentioned.

In 1983 he portrayed Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom within the adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s ebook, “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 Pageant ensemble prize for his efficiency in “Quick Cuts” in 1993, his biography mentioned.

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

Reporting by Wealthy McKay in Atlanta; Modifying by Mark Porter

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