Poster: Stuck In The '70's
(see this users gallery) Rick Jason committed suicide one week after the Combat Reunion in Las Vegas in October 2000.
Here is Rick Jason's Obituary from CNN.
'Combat' star Rick Jason dead at 74
October 18, 2000
Web posted at: 10:23 AM EDT (1423 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Actor Rick Jason, who starred as tough infantry officer Lieutenant Gil Hanley on the 1960s television series "Combat!" has committed suicide, authorities said Tuesday. He was 74.
Jason died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, said Craig Stevens, a medical examiner for Ventura County. The actor was found by his wife at about 5 a.m. Monday in their home in Moorpark, about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
"It has been ruled a suicide," said Stevens, though a note was not found, he added. Jason was not known to have been physically ill, but had been despondent over personal matters, said Stevens.
Jason was the second Hollywood actor to take his own life this month. Veteran character actor and stuntman Richard Farnsworth, a two-time Oscar nominee, committed suicide at his home in New Mexico on October 6. He had been diagnosed with terminal bone cancer.
Jason's death comes about a week after he and fellow cast members of "Combat!" attended a three-day gathering for fans in Las Vegas, according to the show's official Web site.
The compassionate lieutenant
The hour-long drama, which aired on ABC from 1962 to 1967, focused on a fictional United States Army platoon fighting its way across Europe following the D-Day invasion. Jason starred as the hard-boiled but compassionate lieutenant commanding the battle-weary GIs.
The show, the longest-running World War Two series in television history, also starred Vic Morrow, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1982 on the set of his film, "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Another cast member, Dick Peabody, who played the "gentle giant" Littljohn on the series, died of prostate cancer last December at age 74.
Jason was born in New York City in 1926, the only son of a stockbroker and a well-to-do mother. He served in the Army Air Corp during World War II and later studied acting under the GI Bill.
Prior to becoming a household name on "Combat!" Jason appeared in a 1956 television movie, "The Fountain of Youth," directed and co-written by Orson Welles, and starred in the short-lived 1960 series "The Case of the Dangerous Robin," playing a suave insurance investigator.
His stint on the syndicated drama made Jason one of the first actors to use martial arts on television.
During the 1970s and '80s, he appeared in such prime-time series as "Matt Houston," "Police Woman," "Murder She Wrote," "Wonder Woman," Fantasy Island" and "Dallas." He also was a regular on the CBS soap opera, "The Young and the Restless."
Jason is survived by his wife, Cindy Jason. |