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'Apocalypse Now' actor Sam Bottoms dies in LA
Published: 12/18/08, 3:46 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sam Bottoms, who had small but memorable roles in the 1970s classics "Apocalypse Now" and "The Last Picture Show," has died. He was 53. Bottoms, one of four actor-brothers, died Tuesday of brain cancer at his home in Los Angeles, wife Laura Bickford said.
In "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War epic, 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."
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.
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