Spider-Man And Soap Opera Star Jack Betts Passes Away At 96
Hollywood mourns the loss of veteran actor Jack Betts, remembered for his vast body of work across television, cinema and Italian westerns.
Veteran actor Jack Betts, best known for his role in 'Spider-Man', has died. He was 96. As per Bett's nephew, Dean Sullivan, Hollywood actor breathed his last on Thursday at home in Los Osos, California, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
A member of The Actors Studio, Betts portrayed Llanview Hospital doctor Ivan Kipling on ABC's One Life to Live from 1979-85, and his soap opera resume also included stints on General Hospital, The Edge of Night, The Doctors, Another World, All My Children, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light, Loving and Generations.
Betts bluffed his way into starring as the avenging title character in Franco Giraldi's Sugar Colt (1966), where he was billed as Hunt Powers for the first time. The film kicked off a run of about 15 spaghetti Westerns for him through 1973 but left him without the fame enjoyed by another American star of similar Italian fare.
He made his big-screen debut in The Bloody Brood (1959), starring Peter Falk, then joined Anthony George, Sebastian Cabot and Doug McClure in 1961 to play detective Chris Devlin on the second and last season of CBS' Checkmate, created by Eric Ambler.
Betts appeared four times on CBS' Perry Mason from 1961-66 before he met Giraldi about starring in Sugar Colt. He told the director that he could ride a horse and had just won a shooting contest -- of course, he had never been on a horse or handled a gun -- but he spent the next three weeks learning those skills at John Wayne's ranch before reporting for duty at Cinecitta in Rome.
He is survived by his nephew Dean, his nieces, Lynne and Gail, and his sister, Joan.
(This report has been published as part of an auto-generated syndicated wire feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been modified or edited by ABP LIVE.)
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