Fred Ward is survived by his wife of 27 years, Marie-France Ward, and his son, Django Ward. On screens since the early 1970s after serving in the U.S. Air Force and stints as an order cook, boxer, and a lumberjack in Alaska, Ward was known for his versatility in both comic and dramatic roles. He could play author Henry Miller in “Henry & June,” the world’s first NC-17 movie, or a dirt bike rider in “Timerider: The Aventure of Lyle Swann.” But his first major role came in Clint Eastwood’s 1979 “Escape from Alcatraz” as bank robber John Anglin.
His role as Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom in Philip Kaufman’s Tom Wolfe adaptation “The Right Stuff” in 1983 brought him new acclaim. In 1990’s “Miami Blues,” he played a veteran Miami detective entangled with a slick ex-con played by Alec Baldwin. Ward himself bought the film rights to the source material, a novel by Charles Willeford, with George Armitage directing and Jonathan Demme producing. For Robert Altman, he played a studio security chief in the Hollywood satire “The Player” and as a fisherman who discovers a corpse in Robert Altman’s Raymond Carver saga “Short Cuts” — two memorable roles for a major American filmmaker who tapped the actor’s chameleon-like gifts. Ward is best known by cult film fans for his role as Earl Bass in 1990’s horror comedy “Tremors,” in which he battled giant, wormlike sand monsters opposite Kevin Bacon. Over the last few years, in addition to appearances in a wide range of films like “Chain Reaction,” “The Chaos Factor,” “Summer Catch,” “Wild Iris” with Gena Rowlands,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Abandon,” “Coast to Coast,” “Exit Speed,” “Management,” and “The Wild Stallion,” Ward did plenty of work on TV, including spots on “10.5,” “In Plain Sight,” “The United States of Tara,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Leverage,” and “True Detective.” Ward spent the last years of his life developing his second favorite art form: painting. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
