Posted on 12/17/2008 9:08:48 PM PST by Borges
Sam Bottoms, a film and television actor who played the role of California surfer-turned-GI Lance Johnson in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War epic "Apocalypse Now," has died. He was 53.
Bottoms died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles of glioblastoma multiforme, a virulent brain cancer, said his wife, Laura Bickford.
The brother of actors Timothy, Joseph and Ben Bottoms, Sam made his screen debut as a teenager in Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film "The Last Picture Show," in which Timothy played one of the leads. Sam played Billy, the mute, mentally handicapped boy.
Then 15, he hadn't expected to be cast in the movie.
Bottoms had traveled from his home in Santa Barbara to Archer City, Tex., to observe the filming, he recalled in a 1993 interview with the Houston Chronicle.
He was sitting on a street corner drinking a Dr. Pepper with his brother when a station wagon rolled by and stopped.
"Peter Bogdanovich gets out," Bottoms recalled, "and says, 'What's your name?' "
When he said he had come to visit his brother, Bogdanovich surprised him by asking, "Do you want to be in the movie?"
Since then, Bottoms appeared in some 30 films, including Clint Eastwood's "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Bronco Billy." More recently, he appeared in "SherryBaby," "Shopgirl" and "Seabiscuit."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
RIP, Sam.
CHARLIE DON’T SURF!!!
I remember his role in The Last Picture Show. It was such a sad role. I never knew he was the surfer in Apocalypse Now. Rest in Peace, Sam.
“You want to surf, Soldier?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s good, son, because you either surf, or fight.”
He was in The Outlaw Josey Wales he played Jamie!
Wasn’t he the guy in Apocalypse who was looking for mangoes in the jungle when that tiger comes storming out of the bushes? Classic stuff.
No...that’s the chef from New Orleans...the sauce guy ;-)
Riveting is an understatement.
Frederic Forrest.
A merciless killer. It killed my late wife, and it is killing Teddy Kennedy.
I wondered the other day, after watching Josey Wales, if the same actor that portrayed the young soldier that was shot and accompanied Josie, also played the nearsighted gunfighter wannabe in Forgiven. Clint must have liked his style.
Love your screen name. Those movies were fun.
Too young to go. Terrible disease. RIP.
Poor guy.
Got it. A fine movie, lots going on in Apocalypse Now. Spooky.
His brother Tim is that Bush impersonator.
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