Gil Gerard, the actor who became a childhood hero to many for his lead performances in the 1979 movie “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” and its subsequent TV incarnation, died early Tuesday, his wife announced on social media. He was 82.
“Early this morning Gil — my soulmate — lost his fight with a rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer,” Janet Gerard wrote Tuesday evening on Facebook. “From the moment when we knew something was wrong to his death this morning was only days.”
She was by Gerard’s side when he died in hospice care, she added as she placed another post — a pre-written message from the actor to his family, friends and fans — on her husband’s Facebook page.
“If you are reading this, then Janet has posted it as I asked her to,” the actor wrote. “My life has been an amazing journey. The opportunities I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the love I have given and received have made my 82 years on the planet deeply satisfying.”
The post was followed by myriad comments in which fans spontaneously recalled Gerard’s work as Buck Rogers and shared the influence he had on their lives.
“Your time as Buck Rogers was way too short but it has stayed with me in my childhood memories for 45+ years,” one man wrote. “Your hero was brave, macho, but also kind, compassionate, and fair. I feel as if that was representative of the man you truly were. Thank you for being the kind of ‘make believe’ hero that we should all want to be in real life.”
Another fan replied, “[H]aving met him, I can say he was all that. On and off the screen.”
Wrote another, “Like many here, I grew up watching Gil as Buck Rogers. He was cool… and he was funny… and he was nice. I was happy to find him here after all these years… still cool… still funny… still nice. It was a highlight when he ‘liked’ one of my comments. We’ll keep an eye out for you… 500 years into the future!”
Gerard discussed the allure of “Buck Rogers” with The Times in 2010.
“With our show, the reason people liked it was the humor and the fact that it was colorful and upbeat and it had heroes in it,” he said, chatting at a comic convention in Anaheim. “It was family entertainment. I think it’s great to deal with more serious issues, but you can do it with humor — look at what ‘All in the Family’ dealt with. You can be serious without being relentlessly dark and heavy.”
He also had wishes for the future direction of sci-fi projects, which at the time he observed were “very dark, almost hopeless.” And, he said, “wet.”
“Have you noticed how much rain they get in the future now? Everything is rainy and muddy. I don’t understand, either, how come everybody is so dirty when there’s so much water around everywhere,” Gerard observed with what seemed to be a healthy sense of humor. “Look at ‘Waterworld’ — they live in a place with no land and everyone’s covered in dirt. I don’t get it. You think they’d fall overboard and get clean once in a while.”
Gilbert Cyril Gerard was born Jan. 23, 1943, in Little Rock, Ark., and trekked to New York City in 1969 to give acting a shot, studying at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.
He drove a taxi to pay the bills and, according to his website, one day a fare told him to show up on the set of the movie “Love Story.” Ten weeks of work on the film followed and his career took off. At first Gerard appeared primarily in commercials, representing companies including Ford, Coca-Cola and Proctor & Gamble until he landed the role of former POW Dr. Alan Stewart on NBC’s “The Doctors.” He put on the white coat and stethoscope for more than 300 episodes of that daytime drama from 1973 to 1976.
Then an agent lured him to the West Coast, where auditions got him noticed by NBC. NBC’s interest led to his casting in the title role in Universal Pictures’ “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” starring alongside Erin Gray as Col. Wilma Deering and Pamela Hensley as Princess Ardala.
As William “Buck” Rogers, Gerard played a 20th century astronaut who had come out of suspended animation 500 years in the future, only to discover a planet in ruins. In 1979 dollars, the film earned more than $21 million worldwide, or about $100 million when adjusted for inflation.
His career outside of “Buck Rogers” included appearances on mainstream shows abundant in that era — “Baretta,” “Hawaii 5-0,” “CHiPs” and “Little House on the Prairie” among them — as well as more obscure TV movies with delightful titles: “Reptisaurus,” “Nuclear Hurricane” and “Bone Eater.” “Sidekicks” in the mid-1980s, a couple of years after the release of the Oscar-nominated 1984 movie “The Karate Kid,” saw him playing a cop who becomes the guardian of a pre-teen martial-arts expert. A stint on the short-lived 1990 series “E.A.R.T.H Force” earned him some light snark from The Times’ then-critic Howard Rosenberg.
But Gerard also appeared in successful mainstream films including “The Nice Guys” starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling and “The Big Easy” with Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin.
Gerard was married and divorced four times before exchanging vows with Janet Gerard in the 2010s. Among his wives was model and actor Connie Sellecca, whom he was married to from 1979 until their divorce was finalized in 1987. They had one child, a son.
In addition to addictions to alcohol and drugs, the actor battled his weight starting in the 1980s, with the once-trim leading man eventually seeing his health suffer as he topped 300 pounds, according to a 1990 interview with People. He later chronicled his 2005 mini gastric-bypass surgery in the 2007 Discovery Health special “Action Hero Makeover.”
“Gil likely saved my life. I was badly in need of weightloss surgery. I was resistant…then i saw a documentary on Gils weight loss journey. It was the impetus I needed as Gil was a hero of mine growing up,” a fan wrote Tuesday on Gerard’s posthumous Facebook post. “I thanked him via email several years ago and he was gracious and kind. I will miss him.”
Gerard appeared to be quite grateful and gracious at the end of his life.
“It’s been a great ride, but inevitably one that comes to a close as mine has,” he wrote in that final prepared post. “Don’t waste your time on anything that doesn’t thrill you or bring you love. See you out somewhere in the cosmos.”
“No matter how many years I got to spend with him it would have never been enough,” Janet Gerard said in closing in her own message on Facebook. “Hold the ones you have tightly and love them fiercely.”
In addition to his wife, Gerard is survived by actor Gilbert Vincent “Gib” Gerard, 44, his son with Sellecca.
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