Casey used football as stepping stone to acting
LOS ANGELES - Bernie Casey, a professional football player turned poet, painter and actor known for parts in films such as “Revenge of the Nerds” and “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” has died. He was 78.
Casey died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a brief illness, his talent agent Erin Connor said.
Born in West Virginia in 1939 and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Casey excelled in track and field and football and attended Bowling Green State University on an athletic scholarship.
He went on to play wide re- ceiver for the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams before going back to his alma mater to get a master’s degree in fine arts.
For Casey, the arts always came first. He painted and published books of poetry, but the football association that he viewed as a stepping stone followed him.
“It was just a gig,” he told the Washington Post in 1977 about football. “But it limits the way people perceive you. That can be frustrating.”
Casey’s professional acting career began with “Guns of the Magnificent Seven,” a sequel to “The Magnificent Seven,” in 1969.
He appeared in some 35 films, including “Boxcar Bertha,” “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” “Brian’s Song” and “Never Say Never Again.”
He played Lambda Lambda Lambda head U.N. Jefferson in “Revenge of the Nerds” and John Slade in Keenan Ivory Wayans’ Blaxploitation parody “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” from 1988.
He also had a number of television credits, including “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Murder She Wrote,” “L.A. Law” and the made-for-TV movie “Maurie.”