The rest of the story is here: https://variety.com/2025/tv/obituar...d-buck-rogers-in-the-25th-century-1236610578/
News Gil Gerard (1943-2025)
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The rest of the story is here: https://variety.com/2025/tv/obituar...d-buck-rogers-in-the-25th-century-1236610578/
Those are beautiful messages from him and his wife both. They sound like wonderful souls. RIP to him, and love to her.
The message from him and his wife is lovely. He was never a big star but for a generation like me he will always be remembered and immediately identifiable for Buck and we will always think of the twinkly grin and the theme music. FWIW also, I saw this tweet from a local (to me) former tv presenter and producer:
RIP
I told my parents about this and neither one had any idea what I was talking about.
Yeah. Even though it only ran for a season and a halfnas kids it seemed like a big deal and that it ran or much longer So unless someone caught it in that year and a half period they would not know who Gil was. He did other stuff of course but BRIT25thC was his biggest job. I had always hoped he would get cast in another big leading role in a long running show but Alas it was not to be. Still he was a big part of my childhood and many others. I wish I would have gotten to meet him.
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Met Gil at a con south of Houston ...ohhh... probably 10 years ago. Really nice person to talk to. Seemed to be doing fine at the time. Little heavier but, still definitely "Buck" in there.
R.I.P.
R.I.P.
When you're a kid watching sci fi and fantasy shows, the actors are larger than life. You're not thinking about how this was as good as it got for Gil Gerard's or Richard Hatch's or Marc Singer's careers, or how the shows didn't actually last very long (especially for me since one of the local TV stations would air Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica reruns right after school).
I do remember being excited to see Gil Gerard back on TV in a martial arts Disney show with Ernie Reyes Jr., but that only lasted one season.
Yeah, when I was that age, to me, Gil Gerard or Lee Majors were on the same level as Sean Connery or Paul Newman. Famous actors. Ditto eg Chris Reeve or Mark Hamill - it never occurred to me that those last two only ever really headlined Superman or Star Wars films.
Absolutely no disrespect to Gerrard but I think Majors was in a slightly different league, this is a guy who headlined not just one but two really popular shows. Both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Fall Guy ran for five seasons.
Reeve did some interesting stuff, I think if it hadn't been for his accident he'd have morphed into a very popular character actor. Hamill seems to be having a bit of a renaissance in his later years which is good to see.
I loved it when Gerrard showed up in The Nice Guys.
The Big Valley (four seasons) should not be forgotten. My favorite Western series ever by far, and Majors was great in it.
People are always ripping on actors when their careers fall off -- "Where is Adrian Paul now?" and "What happened to Molly Ringwald?" But the thing is, they wouldn't even be saying that if they hadn't reached some level of success to begin with. Actor appears in one long-running hit TV series and you never see him again, he's still like a top 5% success story. You can make fun of Eric Roberts for making 15 super low budget movies every year (that are guaranteed to be bad), but work is work.
Wow, this is the third shocking death for me in as many days, first Rob Reiner, then Rachel Carpani from McLeod's Daughters, and now Gerard. I watched most of Season 1 back when it was on either MeTV or Cozi, and I enjoyed it. Even was goofy and cheesy, he was always fun to watch.
Fond memories of this 730pm every week. I think it eas Wednesday or Thursday nights. But we'd watch as a family with dinner
It was Saturday teatimes here in the UK and I remember a big deal was made when they aired the TV-movie version of Planet of the Slave Girls as the series premier (we never saw either version of the pilot until sometime later).
It was late 1979 when it premiered in Australia. We had that weird pilot episode with the trippy theme song
I'll be honest it isn't something I'd been aware of, a little before my time and not sure if it aired in the UK anyway but I can see it was a success so that's three series. This seemed to be more of an ensemble though whereas the others he was undisputedly the star of.
Absolutely, I bet there are thousands of actors who would kill for Gerrard's career.
It's the way people sneer at Shatner, but hell, a star in three major tv series not to mention all the hundreds of other film and tv appearances over the years.
I have a recall of it being shown one Saturday night and followed by On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Pure tv heaven for my young self (and my current old self, truth be told), even if I was very puzzled by the fact of a James Bond who was neither Connery nor Moore.