By Actor Gil Gerard, best known as the lead in the classic 1979 NBC sci-fi series “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” has died. He was 82.
The Arkansas-born Gerard passed away at home in Georgia from “a rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer,” says his wife in a social media post.
Gerard first broke through in the early-mid 1970s with roles in “The Doctors” series alongside films like “Airport ’77” and “Hooch”.
Then he starred in the 1979 sci-fi film “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” which proved a big enough hit that NBC repurposed it to serve as the pilot for a TV series that ultimately lasted 37 episodes across two seasons.
After ‘Buck’ was axed, he did mostly direct-to-TV films and struggled with assorted addictions, but still popped up on TV series every now and then and did a lot of commercials in his time. He was also seen in shows like “Days of Our Lives” and “EARTH Force” and films like Shane Black’s “The Nice Guys”.
In 1983, Gerard produced the Broadway musical Amen Corner, which was based on the James Baldwin play and starred Rhetta Hughes.
Gerard also appeared on the 1990 CBS series E.A.R.T.H. Force; hosted the 1992 reality show Code 3; played Major Dodd in 1997 on the NBC daytime soap Days of Our Lives; and showed up in the Ryan Gosling-Russell Crowe comedy The Nice Guys (2016).
He was also the subject of the 2007 Discovery Health Channel documentary Action Hero Makeover, in which he decides to have gastric bypass surgery after his weight had ballooned to 350 pounds. In a 1990 article in People, he estimated that he had lost $1 million worth of work because of overeating.
Gerard was married four times and is survived by his wife of 18 years, Janet, and his son Gib.
Source: THR
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