Rocky & Star Wars Actor Carl Weathers RIP

      By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Within hours of Dublin Comic Con announcing that actor Carl Weathers was coming to Dublin in March, the sad news came that Carl passed away at the age of 76.

His family say he died peacefully at home and his death has truly shocked the world. I met him in Belfast at a comic con a few years ago and he signed a boxing glove for one of my son’s friends who came with us. He was great with us and I was looking forward to meeting him again in a few weeks.

But now that isn’t going to happen.

Instead I’m thinking back at the performances that cemented him into a fan favourite for me. Looking back, to me he was the only man that could stand toe to toe with both Rocky and Arnie. Carl had an intensity about him that made you sit up and notice. None of us will ever forget his role as Apollo Creed and that fight in the ring with Stallone. That fight was raw and roared off the screen at us hypnotised masses. As much as we were rooting for Rocky, your eyes never left Apollo.

Former enemy turned friend to Rocky, I can hear james Brown singing Living in America with Apollo dancing around in his outrageous All American costume. He is confident that Dolph Lumgren’s Ivan Drago will fall like the others so it is with hearts in our mouths that we watcched him die in the ring, his wife crying out to him while Rocky cradles his body. Drago says, “if he dies, he dies.” Rocky glares at him and we shout out knowing Rocky is broken hearted and furious, “I wouldn’t be so cocky, you big blond bollocks. Rocky’s coming on the back of Apollo’s spirit!”

It still makes my blood boil to this day lol But that’s the magic issn’t it.

There’s a power and gut wrenching emotion in it that stayed with audiences long after the movie ended. To see Apollo pummelled to death is a piece of movie history but his legacy lived on in his son.

Similarly in Predator, Dillon against Dutch in the bicep scene shows what a match Weathers was for all of the big power houses at the time. His death in the movie was the most spectacular of them all although you can see his supposed amputated arm strapped up his back. The camera spinning as his gun rattled off shot after useless shot against certain death is brilliantly executed. Predator showed just how good an actor he was and it felt like Arnie was pushed to equal Weathers’ screen presence.

And when he joined the Mandalorian as Greef Karga, we saw another strong character that stood side by side with the Mandalorian in any situation. In the last season he was central in restoring his questionable past and giving the Mandalorian people a home to call their own. It was an act of redemption and a gesture of hope for the future as old enemies forgive and move forward to build a better future.

I’ve only mentioned those that stand out for me but he has so many acting and writing credits to his name; it is a legacy well deserved. He was an uncredited extra in Clint Eastwood’s Magnum Force, an MP in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Force 10 from Navarone, Toy Story 4, Action Jaclson, Happy Gilmour and returned in Little Nicky with Adam Sandler. On television he met Starsky and Hutch, Six Million Dollar Man, Kung Fu and The Shield to name a few.

The thing about Carl was THAT when he walked into a room you noticed. he was intense and brooding but with a smile that melted our hearts that day in Belfast.

Another great loss to the world. Rest easy sir; I’m so glad I got to meet you.