Actor Sam Bottoms Dies At Age 53
Actor Sam Bottoms has died at the very young age of 53 from brain cancer at his home in Los Angeles. Bottoms, one of four actor-brothers, had small but memorable roles in the 1970s classics “Apocalypse Now” and “The Last Picture Show,”
In his 1971 film debut, a 15-year-old Bottoms starred alongside his best-known brother, Timothy, in “The Last Picture Show,” playing a mute and mentally handicapped boy forced by friends to lose his virginity to a prostitute.
Sam Bottoms said he was in Texas to visit his brother, who was the film’s lead, when director Peter Bogdanovich saw him and cast him in the part.
In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now,” Bottoms played pro surfer-turned-soldier Lance B. Johnson, who takes to the waves amid bombs and bullets under the orders of the maniacal, surfing-mad Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore played by Robert Duvall.
“He was a handsome, tall young man and very sweet-natured and seemed to be right for that part,” Coppola said Wednesday. “Sam was a good actor. Of course, he comes from a family that had a lot of theatrical activity.”
After his 1970s films, Sam Bottoms went on to appear in the Clint Eastwood westerns “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (great part and movie) and “Bronco Billy,” and Coppola’s 1987 Vietnam film “Gardens of Stone.”
He more recently appeared in the films “Seabiscuit” and “Shopgirl.”
He is survived by his three brothers, his parents and his wife Laura Bickford.
