Fred Ward, Star of ‘The Right Stuff’ and ‘Henry and June,’ Dies at 79 – The New York Times
Fred Ward, a versatile actor with a forceful onscreen presence who in a long career played roles that ranged from the sexually adventurous novelist Henry Miller to the meticulous, taciturn astronaut Gus Grissom, died on May 8. He was 79.
His death was announced by his publicist, Ron Hofmann, who said Mr. Ward’s family did not want to specify the cause of death or say where he died.
Mr. Ward came by his virile persona authentically — or as authentically as stereotypes of some of the jobs he held might suggest. He worked as a logger and a lumberjack in Alaska, boxed as an amateur and spent three years in the Air Force as a radar technician in the cold and often bleak Labrador region of Canada.
While he never came close to matching the stardom of macho leading men like Bruce Willis or D...