SANTA, MONICA, CALIFORNIA: The resilient character actor Frederic Forrest who played various supporting roles and rarely appeared as a lead man has died. He was most known for his roles as the tense 'Chef Hicks' in 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Huston Dyer', the AWOL army sergeant who won his co-star, Bette Midler's Heart, in 'The Rose'. He was 86.
Forrest died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica after a long illness, his friend, actor Barry Primus, told The Hollywood Reporter. Midler, 77 announced his death in a tweet. "The great and beloved Frederic Forrest has died. Thank you to all of his fans and friends for all their support these last few months,' she wrote. "He was a remarkable actor, and a brilliant human being, and I was lucky to have him in my life. He was at peace."
How did Frederic Forrest die?
Even as Midler revealed Forrest died after a 'long illness' back in September 2022 two GoFundMe pages were created to help with his caregiving expenses. Friends Helen Sanders and Barry Primus while expressing gratitude for donations at the time wrote on the fundraiser, "We have been able to maintain Frederic's home care for the past six months by paying caregivers to be with him 8 hours a day, 7 days a week."
The only Academy Award nomination Forrest received was for his supporting role in the 1976 film 'The Rose'. He portrayed Huston Dyer, a limo driver, in the film, who starts a passionate relationship with Mary Rose Foster, a rock singer whose brief but turbulent life was influenced by Janis Joplin. The movie was a commercial success and also received nominations for editing and best sound while Midler's screen debut earned her best actress nomination. Forrest's cast in “When Legends Die” (1972) after he moved to Los Angeles earned him a Golden Globe nomination for a most promising newcomer.
'All I wanted to do is f*****g cook'
In Coppola's critique of the Vietnam War, 'Apocalypse Now', Forrest played the unassuming 'Jay Chef Hicks', a native of New Orleans. When he is drafted, the Southeast Asian forest on his route to studying cookery in Paris is the last place he wants to be. The crazier things get, the more on edge Chef becomes as is evident by his reaction to an encounter with a tiger in the movie. “I didn’t come here for this, I don’t f****g need this. I didn’t get outta the eighth grade for this, man. … All I wanted to do is f*****g cook..."
Forrest was born on December 23, 1936, in Waxahachie, Texas. As a child, he was bashful and too anxious to participate in school performances. Before moving to New York City to train under famed actor and teacher Sanford Meisner, he graduated from Texas Christian University with a minor in theater arts and a degree in radio and television studies. Later, while working as a page at NBC Studios, Forrest was trained by theater director and actor Lee Strasberg and became an observer at the Actors Studio.
Forrest's list of notable films he portrayed in
The Missouri Breaks (1976), which was directed by Arthur Penn and starred Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, The Two Jakes (1993), which was also directed by and starred Nicholson, and Falling Down (1993), which was produced by Joel Schumacher and starred Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, are some of Forrest's other notable films. Forrest has left behind a notable body of television work, highlighted by his compelling portrayal of the lead character in the 1974 CBS telefilm Larry, which tells the true tale of an intelligent man who was institutionalized because it was believed that he was mentally incompetent as per THR.
Critical acclaims
His depictions of 'Petronius on Quo Vadis?' (1985), the outlaw 'Blue Duck' in the 1989 'Lonesome Dove' miniseries, and the private eye 'Lomax' in the 1990 BBC miniseries 'Die Kinder', all received critical acclaim. In 1987, he also appeared in the first five episodes of 21 Jump Street as Captain Richard Jenkins. In 2002, he appeared with Michael Gambon, Alec Baldwin and Donald Sutherland in the HBO movie Path To War, which was the final film directed by John Frankenheimer. Forrest's last credited film was 2006's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's classic novel All The King's Men, which starred Sean Penn in the lead role as per Daily Mail.
