Kevin Brophy, who starred as a young man raised by wolves on the short-lived ABC series Lucan and as the doomed leader of a college fraternity in the cult horror film Hell Night, has died. He was 70.
Brophy died May 11 at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, his family announced. He was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer 10 years ago, they said.
On 1977-78’s Lucan, his first professional acting job, Brophy portrayed a 20-year-old man who spent the first 10 years of his life with wolves in the forests of Minnesota before he’s brought into society.
His character possessed wolf-like superpowers like strength, agility and heightened senses of smell and hearing, and when angry, his eyes glowed amber.
When he got the part, Brophy asked himself, “What does a boy raised by wolves do?” he recalled in December in an interview for the Happy Horror Time podcast. “I came to the conclusion that everything he will be doing he’ll be doing it for the first time … he goes to college and they teach him to eat … he’s like a student of life.”
The series, however lasted just 12 episodes.
In Hell Night (1981), directed by Tom DeSimone, Brophy played Alpha Sigma Rho president Peter Bennett, who attempts to scare four new pledges (Linda Blair, Peter Barton, Vincent Van Patten and Suki Goodwin) by having them stay overnight at the abandoned Garth Manor.
Kevin Michael Brophy was born in Salt Lake City on Nov. 1, 1953. He and his family moved to the San Fernando Valley when he was 9, and he attended St. Cyril’s Elementary School in Encino, high school in Del Mar, California, and CalArts, where his classmates included Ed Harris, David Hasselhoff and Paul Reubens.
While starring in a play about Jesse James as a senior in college, a William Morris agent saw his photograph in the Los Angeles Times and signed him. A year later, driving to MGM on the way to audition for Lucan, he cut in front of a man in a Mercedes on the way and apologized to him with a wave.
At the studio, the man he first met to talk about Lucan was MGM executive Barry Lowen, the guy he had just cut off on the road. Lowen told him he thought he was perfect for the part and added, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t flip me off?”
Brophy also played the bad guy Jocco Halsey on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries in 1978; showed up on episodes of M*A*S*H, The Love Boat, Trapper John, Matt Houston, Growing Pains, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and JAG; and appeared in such other films as The Long Riders (1980) and GoodFellas (1990).
For 26 years starting in 1983, he worked as a valet parking cars at the Hotel Bel-Air when he wasn’t acting. He said he once ran into Quentin Tarantino, who told him he admired his lengthy monologue in Hell Night. He later served as a host at the Luxe Hotel, also in Beverly Hills.
Survivors include his wife, Amy; his mother, Carol; his brother, John, and his wife, Wendy; his children, Kelly, Michael, Megan and Ryan; and his grandchildren, Jarrah and Saylor.
A celebration of life is set for 11 a.m. on June 29 at St. Cyril’s church in Encino.
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