We were all very sad to learn of this news at the weekend.
John Saxon, the rugged actor who kicked around with Bruce Lee in Enter
the Dragon and appeared in three Nightmare on Elm Street movies for director
Wes Craven, died Saturday. He was 83.
Saxon died of pneumonia in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, his wife, Gloria,
told The Hollywood Reporter.
An Italian-American from Brooklyn, Saxon played characters of various
ethnicities during his long career. His portrayal of a brutal Mexican bandit
opposite Marlon Brando in The Appaloosa (1966) earned him a Golden Globe, and
he had a recurring role on ABC's Dynasty as Rashid Ahmed, a powerful Middle
East tycoon who romanced Alexis Colby (Joan Collins). And on another 1980s
primetime soap, CBS' Falcon Crest, he played the father of Lorenzo Lamas'
character.
Years earlier, Saxon starred from 1969-72 as the surgeon Theodore
Stuart on "The New Doctors" rotating segment of the NBC drama series
The Bold Ones.
Discovered by the same agent who launched the careers of Rock Hudson
and Tab Hunter, Saxon first gained notice for his performance as a disturbed
high school football star who taunts Esther Williams in The Unguarded Moment
(1956). In the film's credits, he's billed as "the exciting new
personality John Saxon."
He played a police chief who
makes a fatal mistake in the Canadian cult classic Black Christmas (1974),
featuring Margot Kidder and Keir Dullea, and his horror résumé also includes
two films for Roger Corman: Queen of Blood (1966) and Battle Beyond the Stars
(1980), playing a tyrannical warlord.
In Warner Bros.' Enter the Dragon (1973), Lee's first mainstream
American movie and last before his death at age 32, Saxon portrayed Roper, a
degenerate gambler who participates in a martial arts tournament. In real life,
his fighting skills did not approach those possessed by Lee and another co-star,
karate champion Jim Kelly.
Saxon, though, said that Lee "took me seriously. I would tell him
I would rather do it this way, and he'd say, 'OK, try it that way,' " he
told the Los Angeles Times in 2012.
Saxon played the cop Donald Thompson in the first and third films in
the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, where he's eventually killed by Freddy
Krueger's skeleton. He then returned to play a version of himself in New
Nightmare (1994).
He was born Carmine Orrico on Aug. 5, 1936, the eldest of three
children of an Italian immigrant house painter. While in high school, he worked
as a spieler at a Coney Island archery concession, becoming proficient with the
bow and arrow. "Brooklyn was a tough place to grow up in, but it taught you survival,
and if you were ambitious, it taught you to want better things," he once
said.
Walking out of a movie theater
after skipping class at New Utrecht High School, he was spotted by a male
modeling agent and then appeared in magazines like True Romances.One photo shoot, which he said pictured him as a "Puerto Rican
guy" leaning against a garbage can after he had been shot, caught the
attention of Henry Willson, the legendary Hollywood agent who had discovered
Hudson and Hunter.
Then just 17, Saxon signed with Willson, studied dramatics for six
months with Betty Cashman at Carnegie Hall and flew to Hollywood, where he was
quickly signed by Universal. He attended the studio's workshop for 18 months
and then worked with Mamie Van Doren in Running Wild (1955).
After Unguarded Moment, Saxon appeared as young rock 'n' roll
musicians in Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1958) and played
opposite Sandra Dee in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), directed by Vincente
Minnelli, and Debbie Reynolds in Blake Edwards' This Happy Feeling (1958).
In Cry Tough (1959), Saxon starred as a tough Puerto Rican kid from
New York, and in War Hunt (1962), he was top-billed as a psychotic solider.
(Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack also were in the cast, and the three would
reunite in 1979 for The Electric Horseman.)
Never shy about showing off his machismo, Saxon also co-starred with
Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd (1972) and played a dirty union lawyer in Andrew
McLaglen's Mitchell (1975).
His film résumé also included Mario Bava's Evil Eye (1963), Otto
Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), Blood Beast From Outer Space (1965), The Swiss
Conspiracy (1976), Wrong Is Right (1982), Richard Brooks' Fever Pitch (1985),
Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and God's Ears (2008).
He was married three times, to screenwriter Mary Ann Murphy, airline
attendant turned actress Elizabeth Saxon and, since 2008, cosmetician Gloria
Martel. Survivors also include his son, Antonio, and his sister, Dolores.
RIP sir
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