Carl Weathers
Carl Weathers | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Carl Weathers at the Calgary Expo 2015 | |||||||||
| Born | January 14, 1948 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. | ||||||||
| Occupation(s) | Actor, professional football player | ||||||||
| Years active | 1973–present (actor) 1970–1974 (football player) | ||||||||
| Spouse(s) |
Mary Ann Castle
(m. 1973; div. 1983)Rhona Unsell
(m. 1984; div. 2006)Jennifer Peterson
(m. 2007; div. 2009) | ||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||
|
American football career | |||||||||
| No. #49, #55 | |||||||||
| Position: | Linebacker | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| College: | San Diego State San Francisco State University | ||||||||
| Undrafted: | 1970 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Carl Weathers (born January 14, 1948) is an American actor and former professional football player. He is best known for portraying Apollo Creed in the Rocky series of films. He also portrayed Jericho "Action" Jackson in Action Jackson, Dillon in Predator, Chubbs Peterson in Happy Gilmore and Little Nicky, and a fictionalized version of himself on the comedy series Arrested Development. He also played in the National Football League as linebacker for the Oakland Raiders during the 1970-1971 seasons.
Early life
Weathers was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.[1] He graduated from St. Augustine High School - New Orleans in 1966 and then attended Long Beach City College and San Diego State University. During high-school he was an all around athlete, involved in boxing, football, gymnastics, judo, soccer, and wrestling. He earned his B.A. in Drama from San Francisco State University in 1974.
Football career
Weathers played football as a linebacker both in college and professionally. He started his college career in 1966 at Long Beach City College, where he did not play in 1966 due to an ankle injury suffered when he tripped over a curb surrounding the running track while warming up for practice with another linebacker, Paul Snow. He then transferred and played for San Diego State University, becoming a letterman in 1968 and 1969.
Weathers had a brief professional career with the Oakland Raiders; he played seven games in 1970 and one in 1971. He joined the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League in 1971 and played until 1973, 18 games in total. During the off-seasons, Weathers attended San Francisco State University and finished his B.A. in Drama in 1974. He retired from football in 1974, and began pursuing an acting career. [2] In his professional football career, he played for Hall of Fame coaches Don Coryell (at San Diego State) and John Madden with the Oakland Raiders.
He was chosen to narrate NFL Films' season recap of the 2001 Oakland Raiders season.
Acting career
Weathers had his first parts in two blaxploitation films directed by his longtime friend Arthur Marks: Bucktown (1975) and Friday Foster (1975). Weathers also appeared in an episode of the 1970s sitcom Good Times entitled "The Nude", portraying an angry husband who suspected his wife of cheating on him with main character J.J. In 1975, he guest starred in an episode of Kung Fu entitled "The Brothers Caine".
In 1976, he appeared as a loan shark in an episode of the crime-drama Starsky and Hutch while also landing the role alongside Sylvester Stallone in Rocky as Apollo Creed, a role he reprised in the next three Rocky films in 1979, 1982, and 1985. For the penultimate film in the Rocky series, Rocky Balboa (2006), Stallone asked Weathers, Mr. T, and Dolph Lundgren for permission to use footage from their appearances in the earlier Rocky movies. Mr. T and Lundgren agreed, but Weathers wanted an actual part in the movie, even though his character had died in Rocky IV.[citation needed] Stallone refused, and Weathers decided not to allow Stallone to use his image for flashbacks from the previous Rocky movies. They instead used footage of a fighter who looks similar to Weathers.[3]
Weathers is briefly seen as an Army MP in one of the three released versions of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (originally released in 1977). In 1978, Weathers portrayed misogynist Vince Sullivan in a TV movie, Not This Time. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Weathers starred in a number of action films for the small and big screen, including Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Predator (1987), Action Jackson (1988), and Hurricane Smith (1992). As a member of the cast of Predator, Weathers worked with future California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Many years later he appeared in a spoof segment on Saturday Night Live, announcing that he was running for political office and urging viewers to vote for him on the basis that "he was the black guy in Predator".
He also appeared in Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl" music video and co-starred in the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore, as Chubbs, a golf legend teaching Happy how to play golf. He reprised the role nearly four years later in the Sandler comedy Little Nicky.
During the final two seasons of In the Heat of the Night, his character, Hampton Forbes, replaced Bill Gillespie as the chief of police. Another noted TV role was Sgt. Adam Beaudreaux on the cop show Street Justice. He also played as MACV-SOG Colonel Brewster in the CBS series Tour of Duty.
In 2004, Weathers received a career revival as a comedic actor beginning with appearances in three episodes of the comedy series Arrested Development as a cheapskate caricature of himself, who serves as Tobias Fünke's acting coach. He was then cast in the comedies The Sasquatch Gang and The Comebacks. Weathers had a guest role in two episodes of The Shield as the former training officer of main character Vic Mackey.
Weathers provided the voice for Colonel Samuel Garrett in the Pandemic Studios video game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.[4] In 2005, he was a narrator on Conquest! The Price Of Victory - Witness The Journey of the Trojans!, an 18-part television show about USC athletics. Weathers is a principal of Red Tight Media, a film and video production company that specializes in tactical training films made for the United States armed forces.[5] He also appeared in one episode of ER as the father of an injured boxer during their 2008 finale season.
Weathers portrayed the father of Michael Strahan and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell's characters on the short-lived 2009 Fox sitcom Brothers.
Weathers is currently acting as Brian "Gebo" Fitzgerald in advertising for Old Spice's sponsorship of NASCAR driver Tony Stewart. He also appears in an ongoing series of web-only advertisements for Credit Union of Washington, dispensing flowers and the advice that "change is beautiful" to puzzled-looking bystanders. He is also starring in a series of commercials for Bud Light, in which he introduces plays from the "Bud Light Playbook". At the conclusion of each commercial, Weathers can be seen bursting through the Bud Light Playbook and shouting "Here we go!".
Personal life
 |
Outside of acting, Weathers is a member of both Big Brothers and the United States Olympic Committee. In February 1973, he married Mary Ann Castle, with whom he has two sons, Jason and Matthew. They were divorced in July 1983. In February 1984, he married Rhona Unsell. He married Jennifer Peterson, his third wife, in 2007. They divorced in 2009.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Magnum Force | Demonstrator | Uncredited |
| 1975 | Friday Foster | Yarbro | |
| 1975 | Bucktown | Hambone | |
| 1976 | The Four Deuces | Taxi Cab Driver | |
| 1976 | Rocky | Apollo Creed | |
| 1977 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | MP | |
| 1977 | Semi-Tough | Dreamer Tatum | |
| 1978 | The Bermuda Depths | Eric | |
| 1978 | Force 10 from Navarone | Sgt. Weaver | |
| 1979 | Rocky II | Apollo Creed | |
| 1981 | Death Hunt | Sundog / George Washington Lincoln Brown | |
| 1982 | Rocky III | Apollo Creed | |
| 1985 | Rocky IV | Apollo Creed | |
| 1985 | Braker | Lieutenant Harry Braker | |
| 1986 | The Defiant Ones | Cullen Monroe | |
| 1987 | Predator | Major George Dillon | |
| 1988 | Action Jackson | Sgt. / Lt. Jericho "Action" Jackson | |
| 1990 | Dangerous Passion | Kyle | |
| 1992 | Hurricane Smith | Billy "Hurricane" Smith | |
| 1995 | Op Center | Gen. Mike Rodgers | |
| 1996 | Happy Gilmore | Chubbs Peterson | |
| 1997 | Shadow Warriors: Assault on Devil's Island | Roy Brown | |
| 1999 | Shadow Warriors 2: Hunt for the Death Merchant | Roy Brown | |
| 2000 | Little Nicky | Chubbs Peterson | |
| 2002 | Eight Crazy Nights | GNC Water Bottle | Voice |
| 2004 | Balto III: Wings of Change | Kirby | Voice |
| 2005 | Alien Siege | General Skyler | |
| 2006 | The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang | Dr. Artimus Snodgrass | |
| 2007 | The Comebacks | Freddie Wiseman / Narrator | |
| 2012 | American Warships | General McKraken |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | Good Times | Calvin Brooks | Episode: "The Nude" |
| 1975 | Kung Fu | Bad Sam | Episode: "The Brothers Caine" |
| 1976 | Starsky and Hutch | Al Martin | Episode: "Nightmare" |
| 1977 | Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected | Hank Dalby | Episode: "A Hand For Sonny Blue"[6] |
| 1987 | Fortune Dane | Fortune Dane | |
| 1989–1990 | Tour of Duty | Colonel Carl Brewster | |
| 1991–1993 | Street Justice | Adam Beaudreaux | |
| 1993 | In the Heat of the Night | Police Chief Hampton Forbes | |
| 2003–2007 | The Shield | Joe Clark | Episodes: "Haunts" "Partners" |
| 2004–2013 | Arrested Development | Carl Weathers | Episodes: "Public Relations" "Marta Complex" "Motherboy XXX" "The B. Team" |
| 2010 | Psych | Boone | Episode: "Viagra Falls" |
| 2011–2013 | Regular Show | God of Basketball | Voice Episodes: "Slam Dunk" "Bank Shot" |
| 2013 | Toy Story of Terror | Combat Carl | Voice |
| 2016 | Colony | Beau | Recurring role |
Video games
| Year | Title | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Mortal Kombat X | Jax Briggs | DLC Voice and likeness |
References
- ^ Carl Weathers Biography (1948–)
- ^ Peters, Ida. "The Afro American". Retrieved 9 February 2015.
- ^ stated by Stallone on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (Dec. 21, 2006).
- ^ Mercenaries at IMDb
- ^ Red Tight Media
- ^ Classic Television Archive: Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected (1977)
External links
- 1948 births
- 20th-century American male actors
- 21st-century American male actors
- Male actors from Long Beach, California
- African-American players of American football
- African-American television directors
- American male voice actors
- Oakland Raiders players
- American players of Canadian football
- BC Lions players
- Canadian football linebackers
- Long Beach City College alumni
- Male actors from New Orleans, Louisiana
- Sportspeople from Long Beach, California
- Sportspeople from New Orleans, Louisiana
- San Diego State Aztecs football players
- San Diego State University alumni
- San Francisco State University alumni
- African-American male actors
- American male film actors
- American male television actors
- Living people