Jeremy Slate, one of Tinsel Town’s most versatile actors has died at the age of 80. Slate co-wrote and starred in the cult film “Hell’s Angels ’69,” starred in eight seasons on the daytime soap opera “One Life to Live,” and had such range as an actor that he appeared in so many diverse roles over his 47-year career as an actor and screenwriter. He died at UCLA Medical Center of complications following surgery for esophageal cancer, according to his agent Bonnie Black.
Slate gained fame in the early 1960s on the TV series “The Aquanauts” and a few years later appeared alongside Elvis Presley in “Girls! Girls! Girls!” He guest starred on nearly 100 TV shows, including “Gunsmoke,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Bewitched” and “Police Story,” “Starman” and “Wonder Woman.” Most recently, he was seen in the NBC sitcom “My Name is Earl.”
Because of his early success with “Hell’s Angels ’69,” Slate appeared during the late 1960s in a string of biker films, including another cult favorite “The Born Losers.” However, he was able to break that biker sterotype and starred opposite some real A-Listers in everything from Westerns to SciFi – from “The Sons of Katie Elder” with John Wayne to “The Lawnmower Man” with Pierce Brosnan. From 1979 to 1987, he was a regular on the ABC soap “One Life to Live” as Chuck Wilson, his longest-running role.
Slate was in pre-production with the feature film “Buttermilk Sky,” a family drama directed by Charles Leinenweber, when he died.