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

Could 13 (Reuters) – Veteran movie and tv actor Fred Ward, 79, finest recognized for taking part in gruff, tough-guy roles in films resembling “Tremors,” “Escape from Alcatraz,” and “The Proper Stuff,” died on Sunday, his publicist stated on Friday.

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

Ward took a roundabout method into appearing, after serving three years within the U.S. Air Power within the Nineteen Sixties after which working as an Alaskan lumberjack, a boxer the place his nostril was damaged thrice and a short-order prepare dinner, in keeping with a biography offered by Hofmann.

His profession spanned greater than 4 a long time, beginning with overseas movies within the early Seventies and stretched by means of 2015 along with his ultimate position within the tv collection “True Detective,” in keeping with his on-line IMBD web page.

He made his first American movie look taking part in a cowboy within the 1975 movie, “Hearts of the West.” However his breakthrough position 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 stated.

He performed the whole lot from an astronaut, cowboy, Vietnam struggle soldier, a chain-smoking police detective-turned-assassin, to a hero battling large worms, the discharge stated.

In 1983 he portrayed Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom within the adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s e book, “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 received a Golden Globe and the Venice Movie Pageant ensemble prize for his efficiency in “Quick Cuts” in 1993, his biography stated.

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

Reporting by Wealthy McKay in Atlanta; Enhancing by Mark Porter

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