The star is best-known for his role in Tremors
We have found out that veteran Hollywood star Fred Ward has tragically passed away. He was 79. Ward is perhaps best-known for starring as Earl Bassett in the 1990 horror movie, Tremors. NPR reports shared that Ward passed away on Sunday, May 8th, but has not given a cause for death. Let’s take a look at Fred’s career in Hollywood.
Fred Ward celebrated career
Ward played the lovable Earl Bassett in Tremors, back in 1990. He and Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee were the standout performers in the movie. He reprised the role in the sequel, titled Tremors II: Aftershocks, but Bacon did not return. However, that wasn’t his only horror role. Fred Ward also starred as Detective Harry Philip Lovecraft in 1991’s Cast a Deadly Spell. It spelled the beginning of a long list of Lovecraftian stories.
He then went on to star in movies like Miami Blues, Naked Gun 33 1/3, Escape From Alcatraz, The Crow: Salvation, The Right Stuff, and True Detective, among others.
Tributes to Fred Ward
One of the first people to pay tribute to Ward was of course, his Tremors co-star, Kevin Bacon. Bacon tweeted out that he was so sad to hear about Ward’s passing. he added that he couldn’t have asked for a better partner when it came to battling underground worms. The two had been friends since starring together. He played many leading characters, but with a subtlety that is different from that out of carboard cutout figures, wrote Chicago Tribune’s Julia Cameron. It can be viewed as a meditation on America’s notions of masculinity.
Fred Ward is survived by his wife Marie-France Ward, and their son Django.