Bernie Casey, Football Star Turned Actor, Poet and Painter, Dies at 78

[sandensea]

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Actor Bernie Casey, who appeared in numerous films after a career as a standout NFL wide receiver, has died. He was 78.

Casey, who also starred in Cleopatra Jones and several other blaxploitation movies of the 1970s, died Tuesday after a brief illness at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his representative told The Hollywood Reporter.

Not long after he unexpectedly retired from the Los Angeles Rams, Casey portrayed Chicago Bears player J.C. Caroline in the 1971 ABC telefilm Brian's Song. In Brothers (1977), Casey distinguished himself by portraying a thinly veiled version of George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party who was killed in San Quentin in 1971.

Casey played a heroic former slave and train robber in Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (1972); CIA agent Felix Leiter (a recurring Bond film character) in Never Say Never Again (1983); fraternity president U.N. Jefferson in Revenge of the Nerds (1984); and Col. Rhumbus, tasked with training Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase in John Landis' Spies Like Us (1985). He also wrote, directed, starred in and produced The Dinner (1997).

A true Renaissance man, Casey also was a published poet as well as a painter whose work was exhibited in galleries around the world.

Read more: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bernie-casey-dead-actor-nfl-910749

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Bernie Casey, 1939-2017.

[iluvtennis]

1. My prayers and condolences to his family and friends. He was one of my teenage crushes.

[Aristus]

2. He was a terrific actor. I liked him a lot.

[MFM008]

3. RIP Mr. Casey

[whistler162]

4. RIP.. one of the many you know the face

and maybe the voice but just don't always remember the name to go with it actors. Good actor.

[Dave Starsky]

5. I remember him as Spender in NBC's The Martian Chronicles.

Pretty ambitious and decent TV adaptation of a tough book to bring to the small screen. He was an excellent actor.

[DFW]

6. RIP U.N. Jefferson

That was the first role I saw him in. I realize it was a just-for-fun role, but he played it brilliantly.

[yallerdawg]

7. His name has always been linked for me with "Gargoyles."

It was a genre not seen too often on TV, and the creatures were terrifying - at the time - and the story was cool!

And the mysterious Bernie Casey was the Gargoyle.

For this, and all you did!

Rest in peace, Bernie Casey.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Wow.

R.I.P.

Hadn't heard his name in awhile... I remember when he appeared on several scifi TV series including Star Trek's DS9 for an arc ("The Maquis Pt. 1 & 2" ) with Avery Brooks & Mark Alamo -



This has been a rough year for sure... Condolences to his family.