Bernie Casey, an accomplished National Football League receiver who successfully painted and acted in dozens of films, including “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Brian’s Song” and “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 78.
His friend Wren T. Brown said the cause was complications of a stroke.
A fast 6-foot-4 receiver, Mr. Casey had been a football and track star at Bowling Green State University in Ohio when he signed with the San Francisco 49ers in 1961. Over eight seasons he was a model of consistency, catching at least 50 passes per season five times and finishing in the top 10 among N.F.L. receivers four times. He was chosen for the Pro Bowl in 1967, before he moved on to the Los Angeles Rams.
In the Rams’ next-to-last regular-season game in 1967, Mr. Casey caught the game-winning touchdown with 34 seconds left to lead them to a 27-24 win over the Green Bay Packers. The win ensured that the Rams would play the Baltimore Colts for the Coastal Division. The Rams won easily, but lost the conference championship to the Packers. Mr. Casey scored the Rams’ only touchdown.
By then, he was charting what he would do after he finished playing football. Mr. Casey, who had been painting since high school, told Life magazine in 1964, “I think of myself as an artist who plays football, not as a ball player who paints.”
While he was still motivated to excel in football, he said, his greater goal was to improve as a painter. He had already had two one-man shows.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I think the real Bernie Casey is coming through,” he told Life. “There are all sorts of signs. Just the other day, I was walking through a gallery and a man walked up and said, ‘Are you Bernard Casey, the artist?’ ”
Mr. Casey balanced painting abstract oils and fantasy landscapes with acting once he stopped playing football. He retired after the 1968 season, three years after Jim Brown, the N.F.L.’s biggest star, abrupty ended his career with the Cleveland Browns and began to act. One of Mr. Casey’s first roles was in “tick … tick … tick …,” a 1970 thriller with Mr. Brown.
He went on to play J. C. Caroline, a Chicago Bears teammate of the dying Brian Piccolo, in the televison movie “Brian’s Song” (1971); a C.I.A. agent working with Sean Connery in the James Bond film “Never Say Never Again” (1983); and an aging action hero in “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” (1989), a parody of the blaxploitation genre that reunited him with Mr. Brown.
Mr. Casey also appeared in three of the “Revenge of the Nerds” movies, a series of comedies about collegiate misfits fighting a jock fraternity. He played U. N. Jefferson, president of the Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity.
In 1973, he portrayed the paralyzed former National Basketball Association player Maurice Stokes in the film “Maurie.” Writing in The New York Times, the columnist Dave Anderson praised Mr. Casey for capturing the agonizing effort required by Mr. Stokes to lift a spoon and recalled a conversation he had with Mr. Casey late in his football career.
“Just because I’m a football player,” he told Mr. Anderson, “doesn’t mean I can’t be something else at the same time. Most of us live on a small portion of our capacity. I don’t want to let the limitation of others limit me.”
Bernard Terry Casey was born on June 8, 1939, in Wyco, W. Va. His father, Frank, was a coal miner. His mother was the former Flossie Coleman.
In addition to playing on the Bowling Green football team, which was voted the small college champion in 1959, Mr. Casey competed in the high hurdles and finished sixth at the 1960 Olympic trials, short of making the team. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s of fine arts from Bowling Green.
He was drafted by the 49ers, the New York Titans (who became the Jets) of the American Football League and the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. He chose the 49ers because, he said, San Francisco would advance his artistic dreams. He was traded in 1967 to the Atlanta Falcons, which quickly sent him to the Rams.
Collectors of his paintings have included Sidney Poitier, Burt Reynolds and Maya Angelou, according to the Thelma Harris Art Gallery in Oakland, which had a major show of Mr. Casey’s paintings in 2003.
Mr. Casey also published a few books of poetry, including “Look at the People” (1969) and “Where Is the Revolution … and Other Poems” (1973).
He is survived by his sister, Frankie Murray. His marriage to Paula Campbell ended in divorce. They had no children.
In 1997, Mr. Casey directed, wrote and produced the movie “The Dinner,” which featured three African-American men talking about slavery, white superiority, black crime and other racial subjects around a dinner table. It was a departure from the action films and comedies he was known for. But it was close to his heart and based on conversations with his friends. None of the characters had names; they were Good Brother (Mr. Casey), Young Brother (Wren Brown) and Brother Man (Doug Johnson).
“Most people don’t know us, as African-Americans,” Mr. Casey said at the time, “even those of us who are greatly celebrated. We are so expendable, we have no history in the context of the nation.”
*******************************************************************
Bernard Terry Casey (June 8, 1939 – September 19, 2017)[2] was an American actor, poet, and professional football player.
Casey was born in Wyco, West Virginia, the son of Flossie (Coleman) and Frank Leslie Casey.[3] He graduated from East High School in Columbus, Ohio.[2]
*******************************************************************
Bernard Terry Casey (June 8, 1939 – September 19, 2017)[2] was an American actor, poet, and professional football player.
Casey was born in Wyco, West Virginia, the son of Flossie (Coleman) and Frank Leslie Casey.[3] He graduated from East High School in Columbus, Ohio.[2]
Casey was a record-breaking track and field athlete for Bowling Green State University.[4] He earned All-America recognition and a trip to the finals at the 1960 United States Olympic Trials. In addition to national honors, Casey won three consecutive Mid-American Conference titles in the high-hurdles, 1958–60.[5]
Casey was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1961 as the 9th pick in the first round. He played for eight NFL seasons: six with the 49ers and two with the Los Angeles Rams.[2] His best-known play came in 1967 for the Rams in the penultimate game of the season against the Green Bay Packers. The Rams needed to win to keep their division title hopes alive, but trailed the Packers 24–20 with under a minute to play.[citation needed] The Rams then blocked a punt and ran it back to the 5 yard line. After an incomplete pass, Casey caught the winning touchdown pass from Roman Gabriel with under 30 seconds to play to give the Rams a 27–24 victory. The Rams defeated the Colts the following week to win the Coastal Division title.[citation needed]
Casey began his acting career in the film Guns of the Magnificent Seven, a sequel to The Magnificent Seven. Then he played opposite fellow former NFL star Jim Brown in the crime dramas ...tick...tick...tick... and Black Gunn. He played the title role in the 1972 science fiction TV film Gargoyles. He also played Tamara Dobson's love interest in 1973's Cleopatra Jones.
From there he moved between performances on television and the big screen such as playing team captain for the Chicago Bears in the TV film Brian's Song. In 1979, he starred as widower Mike Harris in the NBC television series Harris and Company, the first weekly American TV drama series centered on a black family. In 1980, he played Major Jeff Spender in the television mini-series The Martian Chronicles, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury.
In 1981, Casey played a detective opposite Burt Reynolds in the feature film Sharky's Machine, directed by Reynolds. He reunited with Reynolds a few years later for the crime story Rent-a-Cop.
In 1983, he played the role of CIA agent Felix Leiter in the non-Eon Productions James Bond film Never Say Never Again. He co-starred in Revenge of the Nerdsand had a comedic role as Colonel Rhombus in the John Landis film Spies Like Us. Casey also appeared in the movie Hit Man.
Also during his career, he worked with such well-known directors as Martin Scorsese in his 1972 film Boxcar Bertha and appeared on such television series as The Streets of San Francisco and as U. N. Jefferson, the national head of the Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity in Revenge of the Nerds.
He played a version of himself, and other football players turned actors, in Keenen Ivory Wayans's 1988 comedic film I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. He played a high school teacher in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, released in 1989. Casey appeared as a very influential prisoner with outside connections in Walter Hill's Another 48 Hrs.. In 1992, he appeared as a Naval officer in the battleship USS Missouri in Under Siege.
In 1994, Casey guest-starred in a two-episode story arc in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (along with series star Avery Brooks) as the Maquis leader Lieutenant Commander Cal Hudson, and in 1995 as a guest-star on both SeaQuest 2032 as Admiral VanAlden and Babylon 5 as Derek Cranston. He has continued working as an actor. In 2006, he co-starred in the film When I Find the Ocean alongside such actors as Lee Majors.
He enjoyed painting and writing poetry. Look at the People, a book of his paintings and poems, was published by Doubleday in 1969.[6]
Casey died in Los Angeles on September 19, 2017 at the age of 78.[7]
No comments:
Post a Comment