The Grizzly Adams star also appeared in 1976's The Adventures of Frontier Fremont.
The Cowboys & Indians crew would like to extend condolences to the family, friends and fans of Dan Haggerty, the rugged actor best known as the star of the hit 1974 movie The Life and Times and Grizzly Adams and its subsequent sequels and TV spin-offs. Haggerty passed away Friday at age 74 in Burbank, California.
After starting out as a supporting player in movies as diverse as Muscle Beach Party (1964), Easy Rider (1969), and Where the North Wind Blows (1974), Haggerty landed his first starring role in the 1974 Grizzly Adams film, a family-friendly period drama in which he played a hearty frontiersman based on real-life mountain man James “Grizzly” Adams (1812-1860). The Wisconsin-born actor reprised the character in a 1977-78 TV series, also titled The Life and Times and Grizzly Adams, which co-starred Denver Pyle as an aged trader named Mad Jack and Dan Shanks as a heroic Native American named Nakoma.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Haggery “got his signature role when a producer spotted him in the dailies of a film he was working on in Canada. ‘Now that guy would be great for Grizzly Adams, not the guy we have,’ Haggerty once recounted the producer saying. ‘He says to my wife, who was a secretary at the time, “Do you know that guy?” She says, “Yeah, his name is Dan Haggerty.” And he goes, “Isn’t your name Haggerty?” She says, “Yes, he’s my husband.” “Well, call him up and tell him to come down here, I want to talk to him.”’”
Haggerty later returned to the role in the TV-movies Once Upon a Starry Night (1978) and The Capture of Grizzly Adams (1982), and the feature film Legend of the Wild (1981). His credits also include the TV-movies Terror Out of the Sky (1978) and Condominium (1980), and the features The Adventures of Frontier Fremont (1976), Spirit of the Eagle (1991), Grizzly Mountain (1997), Escape to Grizzly Mountain (2000) and Big Stan (2007).
In 1994, Haggerty was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
