Rob Garrison

Garrison was born on January 23, 1960 and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia.[1] He first became involved in acting at Wheeling Park High School, and also had a small role in Starship Invasions (1977)[2] before graduating in 1978.[3] He then studied theater at Ohio University on a full scholarship, and received a small role as a convict in Robert Redford's prison film Brubaker (1980).[3] After graduating from Ohio University in 1982, he was cast as Tommy in the 1984 film The Karate Kid, although both he and William Zabka tried out for the role of Johnny.[3][4] Garrison reprised this role during the 2019 Season 2 Netflix web series Cobra Kai.[5][6][7][8] His Karate Kid character Tommy is remembered for delivering the line "Get him a body bag, yeah!" during the climactic fight between Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso and Zabka's Johnny Lawrence in the original Karate Kid film.[9] He later stated that the line, heard while his character is offscreen, was not a part of the original script: "My famous line, I never said that while filming. I looped that in two months later. I was in the recording booth with John [Avildsen] and he said he needed two seconds of something. I said, 'Get him a body bag!' on the first try. John said 'That's going to be a classic. You'll never be forgotten because of that line.'"[10][3]

Garrison continued his acting career over the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in films such as The Karate Kid Part II (cameo) (1986) and Iron Eagle (1986).[11][2] He also had roles in the television shows Coach, St Elsewhere, MacGyver and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.[7][8]

In the later part of his life, acting was no longer his full time work.[3] He acted in the No More Kings 2007 music video (that parodied The Karate Kid), Sweep the Leg,[12][13]The Pledge (2011) and the short film titled The Static released in 2016.[11] He interacted with his fans via social media, where he expressed his desire to act in the third season of the YouTube Originals series Cobra Kai.[11] Cobra Kai series is based on the adult lives of the characters in The Karate Kid, and takes place decades after the timeline of the original movie.[2][14] Season 2 of Cobra Kai, in which he reprised the role of Tommy, was his last performance.[4][2]

Garrison, who never married, left everything to his son Tony Messina as they returned to his hometown of Wheeling in 2004 and retired from full-time acting. In 2008, he went to work in management for Pittsburgh-based Eat n Park Hospitality Group, which operates 60 Eat'n Park restaurant locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. He continued to work for the company until his death.

Garrison continued acting on stage in local theatre productions in Wheeling until his health began to fail him. He had been in ill health at the time he reprised his role as Tommy from Cobra Kai, and it would be his last. Garrison died on September 27, 2019, at the age of 59.[1][2] He had been admitted to a West Virginia hospital for treatment of kidney and liver issues, where he had been hospitalized for a month until his organs shut down.[4]

• Rob Garrison at IMDb
• Rob Garrison on LinkedIn