With his rough-cut face and square jaws, Fred Ward looked like a must-have supporting role in Hollywood. He died this Sunday, May 8, at the age of 79, at the end of a career that began in the late 1970s.
He would have been an ideal second knife in the noir films of the 1950s, but fate wanted him to make a career in the 1980s and 1990s… Fred Ward, mouth of American cinema, died this Sunday, May 8 2022. He was 79 years old. The causes of his death have not been communicated, and no explanation has justified this late announcement.
Air Force veteran and movie astronaut
Fred Ward became an actor after spending three years in the Air Force. He studied at Studio Herbert Berghof in New York before flying to Rome. In Italy, he made his debut in two historic television films by Roberto Rossellini; The Medici era (1973) and Cartesius (1974).
Back in the United States, he landed his first film role in Ginger in the morning alongside Sissy Spacek, playing a trucker. But it was by playing an escape companion of Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz (1979) that he really gave impetus to his budding career. A career that took off in 1983 thanks to his performances, on the one hand as a Vietnam War veteran in Back to Hell with Gene Hackman and on the other hand as astronaut Gus Grissom in L’Etoffe des heros.
Kevin Bacon and… Arielle Dombasle
In the 90s, he gave the reply to young actors like Alec Baldwin in Miami Blues, Kevin Bacon in Tremors and Keanu Reeves in Pursuit. In 1995, he came to shoot in France, alongside Arielle Dombasle, in the drama by Alain Robbe-Grillet and Dimitri de Clercq, A noise that makes you crazy. In the same dramatic register, he collaborated twice with Robert Altman in Short Cuts and The Player and played Henry Miller in Henry & June by Philip Kaufman.
In the 2000s, his career stalled. He places himself under the sign of comedy, a genre he had already explored in Is there a cop to save Hollywood?. Thus he invests in a romantic comedy with Summer Catch by Michael Tollin, then in a police comedy with Corky Romano. The same year, he worked for the second time with director Michael Apted on the thriller Never again featuring Jennifer Lopez as a woman/mother stalked by her husband. He then only made brief appearances in small productions, far from the prestigious productions that marked his glorious years.
Kevin Bacon, who shared the Tremors poster with Fred Ward, paid tribute to him in an Instagram post.
“The disappearance of Fred Ward makes me very sad. When I had to face the verses of Tremors, I could not have dreamed of a better partner. I will always remember our conversations about his passion for Django Reinhardt and the jazz guitar during those long days. in the desert. Rest in peace.”
The Cloth of Heroes trailer: