Carl Weathers Said Role in Rocky Films Put Him on the Map

Actor's films included 'Predator' and 'Happy Gilmore'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 2, 2024 2:48 PM CST
Four Times, Carl Weathers Was Apollo Creed to Stallone's Rocky
Carl Weathers arrives at an event last February in Los Angeles.   (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator and teaching golf in Happy Gilmore, has died. He was 76. His manager said Weathers died Thursday, the AP reports. His family issued a statement saying he died peacefully in his sleep. As comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in Action Jackson as he was joking around on the small screen in such shows as Arrested Development, Weathers was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976's Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone.

"It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that's a one-off, so you've got to follow it up with something," Weathers told the Daily Beast in 2017. "Fortunately those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people's consciousness and welcome in their lives." Creed, who appeared in the first four Rocky movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984's Rocky IV, going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroided-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. Weathers played college football at San Diego State University, where he majored in theater, and played one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders.

He grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in Spartacus made an early impression, per the AP. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali—stars who broke the mold and the color barrier. "There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate," he told the Detroit News in 2023. "And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well," he added. Weathers was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2021 for his role in the Disney series The Mandalorian.

(More obituary stories.)

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