A prolific actor, who began his career with much going for him, but who sadly made a few bad acting choices, died on May 18th last, at the age of 87 years.
He is probably most noted for his role in1950s westerns, and that was a time when mostly ‘B’ westerns ruled cinemas. In the 1960s, he mostly guested on tv series, but he did relocate with his wife and family to Britain to appear as the lead on a British crime series, ‘The Baron’, which lasted one season.
He also played Elvis Presley’s half brother in a western, ‘Flaming Star’, and also appeared with John Wayne in ‘The Longest Day’.
In 1969, he guested on the western series, ‘Gunsmoke’, playing the bad guy, Will Mannon. The character was one of the nastiest on the series, because he assaulted the female lead, Miss Kitty, played by Amanda Blake. Steve returned to the role of Mannon eighteen years later, when a reunion movie, ‘Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge’ was filmed. The movie became a huge ratings winner on American tv. In the 70s, Steve starred in the lead role on an action series, ‘SWAT’, which despite its popularity, was cancelled after one season.
A handsome actor, who unfortunately didn’t achieve the success of his better known actor brother, Dana Andrews, he nevertheless was rarely out of work for almost fifty years.
He won the Golden Globe in 1954 for most promising newcomer, for the movie, ‘So Big’, and a Razzie worst actor award in 1981 for playing opposite Faye Dunaway in the Joan Crawford biopic, ‘Mommie Dearest’. However that movie cleaned up at the Razzies that year.
Also in the 80s, he played an aging male sex symbol in the tv adaptation of Jackie Collins ‘Hollywood Wives’, a series which was panned by the critics. However his most bizarre role was as a character originally called Ben Stivers on the tv series ‘Dallas’. At the time ‘Dallas’ was massively popular across the world, and Steve was to have played a character, who may or may not be patriarch Jock Ewing, returned from the dead. He did three episodes of ‘Dallas’ in 1986, and after the series returned from its summer hiatus, the previous season was revealed to a dream or figment of imagination of another character and all that season’s plots were scrapped. However the producers decided to keep Steve on board and reignite the Jock Ewing plot. However they had to rename Steve’s character to become ‘Wes Parmalee’. He continued playing Wes for another twelve episodes, but viewers were confused and the plot proved to be unpopular.
A movie version of ‘SWAT’ was filmed with Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson in 2003, and for homage to the old series, Steve was asked to appear in a cameo role.
Steve Forrest is survived by his wife of 65 years, and three children.
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