Frederic Forrest Dies at Age 86

Frederic Forrest, a character actor with a long resume and a sprinkling of standout roles, including in ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Rose’ has died.

Frederic Fenimore Forrest Jr. was born on Dec. 23, 1936, in Waxahachie, Texas. Growing up, Forrest played football, ran track and went to the movies.

Early Life

As he noted in a 2014 interview with Alan Mercer, it almost seemed as if acting chose him.

“All we had was the picture show. There was no television, so we’d go see all the movies. We had three movie theaters in Waxahachie. I fell into movies. I never thought about it. I didn’t think I was good at anything. I didn’t feel like I had a ‘so-called’ talent. I wasn’t good at anything people considered important. I really didn’t know what I was going to do.”

Yet despite the impulse, when he travelled to New York to attend The Actors Studio, a glimpse of Marlon Brando exiting the building intimidated him to such a degree that he decided to join the Army instead.

Following his service, he attended Texas Christian University, where he majored in radio and television studies with a minor in theater arts. He graduated in 1960 and returned to New York to study with Sanford Meisner. He also spent time with Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio.

Forrest started his career, as so many do, on the stage, and it led to his first film credit, in the Tom O’Horgan adaptation of the play ‘Futz!’ in 1969.

That was just the start of a long career, especially after one of the plays he performed in transferred from Broadway to Los Angeles –– even if he had to cook pizzas to make ends meet.

Film Career

Frederic Forrest as Jay “Chef” Hicks in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now.’

As his cinema career began to heat up, he appeared in the likes of ‘The Don Is Dead’, ‘The Gravy Train’ and the low-budget horror film ‘It Lives Again’, ‘Valley Girl’, ‘The Stone Boy,’ ‘The Two Jakes’, ‘Chasers,’ ‘Lassie,’ ‘Point Blank’ and ‘The Quality of Light’. He also enjoyed a healthy career on the small screen.

He rarely scored leading roles, but became a consummate character actor, and a favorite of directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him in movies such as ‘The Conversation’, Apocalypse Now’, ‘Tucker: The Man and His Dream‘ and ‘One From the Heart’.

Awards recognition followed with ‘The Rose’ in 1979, where he played a grounded, straight-talking limo driving tasked with chauffeuring a wild child rock star around. That film saw him starring alongside Bette Midler (in her film debut), and she was among those paying tribute after learning he had died.

Forrest reflected on his life and career in a New York Times profile in 1979:

“I don’t expect much. I’ve been around too long to have expectations. This is a fickle town, no rhyme or reason to it. By the time you go down the driveway to pick up your mail, you’re forgotten. I waited a year after Larry to try to do something good, but no scripts came. They told me to hire a public relations firm to try to get an Emmy. There was no way I could do that. It goes against my grain to buy ads. I don’t want to buy a prize. I want someone to give me one. Who wants a prize if you have to hustle it?”

The actor died on Friday after a long illness. He was married and divorced twice and is survived by his sister.

(L to R) Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Conversation.’

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