US character actor Fred Ward, known for role in The Right Stuff, dies at 79
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American film and television actor Fred Ward's career spanned more than four decades.
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LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) - American film and television actor Fred Ward, best known for playing gruff, tough-guy roles in movies such as Escape From Alcatraz (1979), Tremors (1990) and The Right Stuff (1983), died on May 8. He was 79.
No cause or place of death was released, as per his family's wishes, his publicist Ron Hofmann said on Friday.
Ward took a roundabout way into acting, after serving three years in the United States Air Force in the 1960s and then working as an Alaskan lumberjack, a boxer where his nose was broken three times and a short-order cook, according to a biography provided by Hofmann.
Ward's career spanned more than four decades, starting with foreign films in the early 1970s and stretched through 2015 with his final role in the television series True Detective, according to his online IMDb page.
He made his first American film appearance playing a cowboy in the 1975 film, Hearts Of The West.
But his breakthrough role came when he played opposite actor Clint Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz.
"The unique thing about Fred Ward is that you never knew where he was going to pop up, so unpredictable were his career choices," the release said.
He played everything from an astronaut, cowboy, Vietnam War soldier, a chain-smoking police detective-turned-assassin, to a hero battling giant worms, the release said.
In 1983, he portrayed Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom in the adaptation of Tom Wolfe's book, The Right Stuff.
That same year, he appeared in the action movie Uncommon Valor with actor Gene Hackman and in the drama Silkwood with actress Meryl Streep.
Ward won a Golden Globe and the Venice Film Festival ensemble prize for his performance in comedy-drama film, Short Cuts, in 1993.
American actor Kevin Bacon, who starred with Ward in the monster horror comedy film Tremors, paid tribute to him on Friday.
"So sad to hear about Fred Ward. When it came to battling underground worms, I couldn't have asked for a better partner," Bacon, 63, wrote on social media.
" I will always remember chatting about his love of Django Reinhardt and jazz guitar during our long, hot days in the high desert. Rest In Peace, Fred."
Ward is survived by his wife of 27 years, Marie-France Ward, and a son, Django Ward.
