John Saxon, who starred in Nightmare on Elm Street as well as the martial arts classic Enter the Dragon has passed away at the age of 83 after suffering from pneumonia.
Saxon earned a Golden Globe when he played opposite Marlon Brando in The Appaloosa in 1966.
Baby Driver director Edgar Wright tweeted a tribute to Saxon, writing, "Rest In Piece John Saxon, beloved actor iconic in several cult classics: Nightmare On Elm Street, Enter The Dragon, Tenebrae, Battle Beyond The Stars, Black Christmas and this, the original Giallo mystery, Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much."
Author Don Winslow wrote, "RIP John Saxon. World class bad ass and friend/student of Bruce Lee. I always said, if I had to do a secret mission and I could on;y bring a couple of guys, I'd want two of them to be Bruce Lee and John Saxon!"
Saxon once said of his childhood growing up in Brooklyn, "Brooklyn was a tough place to grow up in, but it taught you survival, and if you were ambitious, it taught you to want better things."
In Enter the Dragon, Saxon played a degenerate gambler who participates in a martial arts tournament. Though in real life his skills were not comparable to Bruce Lee's, he said that Lee always took him seriously. "I would tell him I would rather do it this way, and he'd say, 'OK, try it that way,'" he revealed to the LA Times in 2012.
He is survived by his wife, Gloria Martel, his son, Antonio, and his sister, Dolores.
Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and fans at this time...
