Sci-Fi Bad Guy Richard Lynch Found Dead At Age 76
Actor Richard Lynch, known for mostly playing villains in sci-fi and horror genre films, was found dead on June 19. 2012 in his Palm Springs home. He was 76 years old.
Richard Lynch spent years as an actor, forging a career that spanned more than 160 movies and television shows. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and often ended up in roles that had him as the villain. It was a casting he relished and leaned into time and again.
Richard Lynch’s career spanned four decades, appearing in William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration, Invasion U.S.A. starring Chuck Norris, Little Nikita, and playing opposite Sidney Poitier in the horror thriller Bad Dreams.
He first appeared in the movie Scarecrow, which won the Grand Prix Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. Richard Lynch followed his debut with roles in such films as the gritty police drama The Seven-Ups and The Happy Hooker.
Remarkably, Richard Lynch was featured in three iterations of Battlestar Galactica, playing three separate roles. He played the character Wolfe on the original 1978 BSG, the character Xaviar in BSG 1980, and the character Count Iblis in the BSG short film “The Second Coming” in 1999. It’s surprising Ronald D. Moore didn’t cast him as a guest star on the latest version of Battlestar Galactica in the mid-2000s.
Richard Lynch won a Saturn Award for best actor from the Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy for his performance as the evil Cromwell in the fantasy film The Sword and the Sorcerer.
He also worked a very long career in TV, appearing in series like Baretta, Police Woman, The Streets of San Francisco, Vegas, The A-Team, Airwolf, Hunter, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Six Feet Under.
Writer/director Rob Zombie wrote on Richard Lynch’s Facebook after learning about Lynch’s death,
“I woke up this morning to the news that our friend Richard Lynch has passed away,” Zombie continues. “Richard was great to work with and really gave it his all. I will never forget the way he scared the crap out of the kid actors in Halloween. As soon as I said action!”
Lynch played Michael Myers’ principal, Principal Chambers, in the 2007 Halloween reboot. His last credited role was in 2012’s Gun of the Black Sun.
At the time of his death, Richard Lynch was survived by his brother Barry and two sisters, Carole Taylor and Cathy Jones. Barry also spent time as an actor.
In all, Richard Lynch had a long and fruitful career on both the big and small screen. He will be missed for the work he did through the years.
