Marc Singer, the actor best known for his role as Matt Cantrell on Dallas and the title character in the 1982 fantasy epic The Beastmaster, was spotted running errands in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The 78 year old cut a sprightly figure in a casual outfit of jeans and a matching blue t-shirt.
Singer featured on the ninth season of Dallas as a friend of Patrick Duffy's character Bobby Ewing, whose tragic recent death hung over the other plotlines.
At the end of the season, Bobby's wife Pamela, played by Victoria Principal, walks into the bathroom and is astonished to discover him alive in the shower. The scene reveals that the entire preceding season, known as the dream season, had only been a terrible nightmare from which she had now woken.
Hollywood heartthrob status
In 1982, Singer achieved Hollywood hunk status when he was cast as the leading man in The Beastmaster. The sword and sorcery epic starred Singer as Dar, a musclebound barbarian who can commune with animals and is locked in a lifelong struggle against a sorcerer played by Rip Torn.
The movie failed to hit at the box office but ultimately earned a devoted fanbase by repeatedly playing on television. Singer reprised the role in two sequels, the interdimensional 1992 romp Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time and the made for television 1996 production Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus.
"One day an actor's walking down the street and the next day he's the Beastmaster," Singer reflected decades later. "And from that day on, he has in his own small way a niche in Hollywood filming history to stand beside the Lone Ranger and so it's like becoming the Lone Ranger."
He added: "It was so fulfilling and so exciting when it was all over to think, to realize that people would now think of me as the Beastmaster."
Network sports and science fiction
Singer turbocharged his sex symbol status by showing off his sculpted physique in a tiny speedo on a 1984 episode of Battle of the Network Stars. The game show, filmed at Pepperdine University in Malibu, featured personalities from ABC, NBC, and CBS competing in athletic events.
Singer was assigned to the swimming event on a team headed by Mark Harmon, who later became the leading man of NCIS. "In those days Speedos is what all Olympic swimmers wore, and if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for us," Singer told NYC Castings.
"It may have been a fun venue, but the young men and women participants took the competition seriously. Besides the bragging rights in the full glare of public exposure, there was good money in it, in those days," he said.
In 1984 and 1985, Singer led the cast of V, a science fiction series about an alien invasion that ran for one season but accumulated a cult fanbase. The show also featured Robert Englund, who briefly became a towering horror star during the run of the show as Freddy Krueger in The Nightmare on Elm Street.
In 1986, Singer joined Dynasty. He spoke to film critic John C Tibbetts about feeling social discomfort as a newcomer in an already established cast.
"I'm shy at parties," Singer said. "And this is like walking into somebody's living room and there's a large family and they're all wonderful and warm. They all know each other. They have a special way of talking with each other and a language all their own, in-jokes and everything."
Nevertheless, he described the cast of the show as a nice bunch. He managed to make a distinct impression on the show as the dashing long lost friend of Bobby Ewing, who the audience believed had recently been fatally run over by a car.
Early life and career
Singer was born in Vancouver and raised in Texas. He inherited artistic sensibility from his parents, respected violinist and conductor Jacques Singer and concert pianist Leslie Singer.
He fell in love with acting when his father introduced him to Shakespeare at age 10. He told interviewer Don Grigware that he was determined to stay away from his parents' professions in classical music because he did not want to spend his life indoors.
After studying the Stanislavsky method and playing Shakespeare in repertory, he built a Hollywood career with a small part on Roots: The Next Generations. The sequel to the iconic miniseries Roots explored the history and legacy of black American slavery. Singer played the son of a couple played by Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland.
Later in the 1970s, he featured on the Planet of the Apes television show. In 1992, he landed a three episode arc as the voice of Dr Kirk Langstrom, whose alter ego is the Man-Bat, on the beloved children's show Batman: The Animated Series.
Over the decades, he has guested on hit shows including Murder, She Wrote, The Twilight Zone, The Young and the Restless, and Arrow.
Stage acting and recent years
Singer devotedly pursued stage acting alongside his screen career, working for the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. The local institution has seen talent pass through its company including Denzel Washington, Winona Ryder, Annette Bening, Don Johnson, Amy Irving, Teri Hatcher, Harry Hamlin, Elizabeth McGovern, and Sinners actor Delroy Lindo.
The theater also operates a youth program that trained future stars such as Zendaya, Brie Larson, Milo Ventimiglia, and Darren Criss.
A representative confirmed to the Daily Mail that Singer is still auditioning for film and television roles.
On the personal front, Singer was married to M*A*S*H alumna Haunani Minn from 1974 until her death in 2014. They welcomed a 35 year old daughter called Phoebe.
