Celebrity
Dan Haggerty, ‘Grizzly Adams’ star, dead at 74 after cancer battle
Dan Haggerty
Actor Dan Haggerty arrives at the premiere of the musical feature film “Standing Ovation” in Universal City, Calif. on Saturday, July 10, 2010.
“The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” star Dan Haggerty is dead at 74, according to multiple reports.
TMZ sources said the actor died early Friday morning after a battle with cancer. He had been undergoing hospital treatment, but friends had reportedly been gathering to say their goodbyes in recent days.
‘Grizzly Adams’ star Dan Haggerty smiles before his beard is shaved in Hollywood, Ca., Wednesday, Sept. 20, 1979.
“I talked to him yesterday and told him we’re praying for him,” Haggerty’s manager Terry Bomar told CNN. “I told him ‘I love you, man.’ The last thing I heard him say was “I love you.'”
Haggerty, with his rugged looks and trademark beard, was well-known in the ’70s as Grizzly Adams, a character based on a real-life California mountain man who trained grizzly bears in the 1800s. According to the New York Daily News, Haggerty actually got his start helping his family run a wildlife attraction and worked in Hollywood as an animal trainer and stuntman before first landing the role in a 1974 film. The movie inspired an NBC TV series that ran from 1977 to 1978.
Haggerty appeared in more than 60 films and TV shows, though most were low-budget horror flicks and outdoors-themed productions later in his career. His most recent roles were as a convict in Rob Schneider’s 2007 film “Big Stan” and as a foreman in the 2013 slasher movie “Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan.”
