Buck Rogers in the 25th Century star Gil Gerard has died. He was 82.
“Early this morning Gil — my soulmate — lost his fight with a rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer,” Gil’s wife, Janet Gerard, wrote via Facebook on Tuesday, December 16. “From the moment when we knew something was wrong to his death this morning was only days.”
She continued, “No matter how many years I got to spend with him, it would have ever been enough. Hold the ones you have tightly and love them fiercely.”
Janet also shared the news of Gil’s death on his official Facebook page.
“This is Janet Gerard, Gil’s wife. Just to clarify, I was by his side when my husband passed away this morning in hospice care,” she wrote. “Below is the message he left: ‘If you are reading this, then Janet has posted it as I asked her to. My life has been an amazing journey. The opportunities I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the love I have given and received have made my 82 years on the planet deeply satisfying.’”
Gil’s posthumous note continued, “My journey has taken me from Arkansas to New York to Los Angeles, and finally, to my home in North Georgia with my amazing wife, Janet, of 18 years. It’s been a great ride, but inevitably one that comes to a close as mine has.”
Gil further offered fans a piece of advice.
“Don’t waste your time on anything that doesn’t thrill you or bring you love,” the Facebook statement concluded. “See you out somewhere in the cosmos.”
Gil notably starred in NBC’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which ran for two seasons from 1979 to 1981.
“Buck Rogers came out as a movie first, and I turned it down three times because I didn’t want to do it,” Gil recalled in a 2018 interview. “I had a thing to do with Michael Landon. I really wanted to do this ‘cause Michael was a really good guy and I hit it off [with him when] I did Little House on the Prairie. He had me do a pilot because he liked what I did so much. We did this pilot called Stone.”
While Gil waited to hear whether Stone would move forward, his agent received an audition opportunity for Buck Rogers.
“[I said], ‘I’m not interested because I saw what it did to Adam West’s career,’” he said, referring to West playing Batman in an animated 1966 film. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to do this campy stuff.’ They came back again, and I said no again. I wouldn’t read the script.”
Once Gil finally read the script at his agent’s insistence, he had a change of heart.
“I read it and I said, ‘Yeah, I like the character. He’s got a good sense of humor, it’s kind of fun [and] it’s not campy,’” Gil said. “We did the movie and it was hugely successful. They wanted to do a series, and then Mike’s project wasn’t picked up, so we did the series.”
