Frederic Forrest

Forrest in 1979

Forrest was born in Waxahachie, Texas, the son of Virginia Allie (née McSpadden) and Frederic Fenimore Forrest, a furniture store owner[1] whose greenhouses provided plants for sale in retail stores.[2]

In 1966, Forrest began acting on stage in an Off-Broadway production of Viet Rock. Forrest's film debut was in When the Legends Die (1973).[2]

He is known for his roles as Chef in Apocalypse Now, When The Legends Die, It Lives Again, the neo-Nazi surplus store owner in Falling Down, Right to Kill? and for playing the writer Dashiell Hammett twice in film — in Hammett (1982) and in Citizen Cohn (1992 TV movie). He had a role as the notorious Mexican/Indian bandit Blue Duck in the 1989 miniseries, Lonesome Dove. He was Academy Award-nominated in the Supporting Actor category for his role in The Rose.[3] He was married to Marilu Henner from 1980 to 1982.

Notable roles include four films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now (as Engineman 3rd Class "Chef" Hicks), The Conversation, One from the Heart and Tucker: The Man and His Dream, along with Hammett, produced by Coppola.

He also appeared in Valley Girl, The Two Jakes, The Stone Boy, The Missouri Breaks, The Deliberate Stranger (TV), Promise Him Anything (TV) and horror maestro Dario Argento's first American film, Trauma.

On television, he played Captain Richard Jenko on the first season of the Fox Television series 21 Jump Street, in 1987. Forrest was subsequently replaced by actor Steven Williams, who played Captain Adam Fuller for the remainder of the series. In 1990, he appeared as private investigator Lomax in the BBC miniseries Die Kinder. He played Sgt. McSpadden in the Civil War-themed movie Andersonville and real-life U.S. Army General Earle Wheeler in 2002's Path to War, the final film of director John Frankenheimer.

• Frederic Forrest at IMDb