Michael Forrest, actor of Roger Corman and "Star Trek" films, died at the age of 97

He starred in "Beast from the Haunted Cave," "Attack of the Ski Soldiers" and "Atlas" for the B-movie maven, but did a lot of Shakespeare on stage and in films overseas.

Michael Forrest, the strapping actor who starred in Beast From Haunted Cave and other Roger Corman B-movies and appeared in classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Star Trek. He was 97.

Forrest had been living in a nursing home in Sparks, Nevada, and died Wednesday, his friend James Brown said.

A native of North Dakota, Forrest made more than 20 films in Spain, France and England—including 100 Guns (1969) with Jim Brown and Raquel Welch—and was a very busy voice actor, fluent in Italian, dubbing more than 500 films while living in Rome from 1968 to 1967.

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At six-foot-three and 215 pounds in his prime, Forrest had recently moved to Los Angeles, where he met Corman in an acting class to play Zarco the whip-breaking barbarian in the epic Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Serpent (1957) starring Richard DeHaans and DeHanathones. Dean Nutones was hired as Zarko.

This led him to Snowy Deadwood, South Dakota, where he played local guide Gil Jackson in Beast From Haunted Cave (1959), produced by Roger's brother, Gene Corman, and starring Chris Robinson as the Beast. (Monte Hellman, who at the time lived in the same apartment building as Forrest, himself directed the feature film.)

The day after he finished work on Beast From Haunted Cave, Jungle was back, playing an American soldier in Roger Corman's war film Invasion of the Ski Soldiers (1960). And after that, he was off to Athens to portray the title hero in Atlas (1960), and Corman was looking to branch out from the popular Hercules pictures starring Steve Reeves.

Forrest played one of three motorcycle-riding brothers from another planet (Lee Kinsolving and Tom Gillan were the others) sent to wipe out humans on Earth in the Twilight Zone episode "Black Leather Jackets" starring Shelley Fabers, which premiered on January 22, 1964.

Nine days later, he was back on CBS on The Dick Van Dyke Show as one of Laura's (Mary Tyler Moore) former love interests, now a priest — in an episode of "The Life and Loves of Joe Coogan" with Rose Marie's Sally Rogers for some great laughs.

And in the Star Trek Season 2 episode "Who Sours for Adonais?" First airing in September 1967, Forrest portrayed the Greek god Apollo, who demands the crew of the Starship Enterprise to worship him as he falls in love with Lieutenant Caroline Palamas (guest star Leslie Parrish).

In 2013, he returned as Apollo on Star Trek Continues to star alongside his late wife, Diana Hill, as Athena.

Gerald Michael Charlebois was born on April 17, 1929 in Harvey, North Dakota. He moved to Seattle with his family as a young man and said he decided to pursue acting instead of boxing after seeing a friend perform at the Seattle Rip Playhouse.

After attending Washington University and San Jose State, he moved to Los Angeles in 1955, appeared in an episode of Highway Patrol, and began acting for the Players Ring Theater Company in West Hollywood. She first met Roger Corman at an acting class they both attended with the famous teacher Jeff Corey.

"Look, Mike, do you want to do this [Viking Women] picture," Forrest recalled in an interview for Tom Weaver's 2001 book. "It's not going to be anything more than a glorified stunt, but if you want to do it, that's fine." "Sure," I said.

He spent five weeks in South Dakota on Beast From Haunted Cave and Ski Troop Attack and told Weaver he was paid $2,500. "I was making $500 a week," he said. "I think at the time, the minimum was $350 a week and I was making $500 - I was pushing for the big bucks!"

Also in 1960, he appeared opposite Roger Moore in the Warner Bros./ABC adventure series Alaskan as French Canadian rogue Pierre Doran.

He was signed to Warners - and later Universal - and worked on everything from Zorro, Bat Masterson, Maverick, Bonanza, Have Gun - Will Travel, Lawman, The Rifleman, Death Valley Days and Wagon Train to Dr. Kildare, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Outer Manson, The Outer Mason. U.N.C.L.E. , weapons, fight! , Gilligan's Island and Get Smart in the late 1960s

Meanwhile, Forrest was performing many Shakespeare plays, playing Othello three times and appearing as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew at the Old Globe in San Diego. (He did the Star Trek concert after someone at the theater recommended it to him.)

Returning from Europe, he lived in New York and played Nick Andropoulos, owner of the Greek restaurant Plakka, on CBS's As the World Turns from 1980 to 1982.

Later, Forrest portrayed a wealthy older millionaire who suffers a fatal heart attack after an intense sadomasochistic encounter with Madonna's Rebecca Carlson in Body of Evidence (1993) and was the pilot in Cast Away (2000), starring Tom Hanks.

She and Hill were married for 52 years until his death in 2022.

"I look back and it certainly hasn't been what you'd call an outstanding career, but on the other hand, it hasn't been bad," he once said. "Some of the work I've done, I'm very proud of. But, like all actors, you work with material and situations that aren't what you want, and you try to make it the best you can. Acting has its ups and downs."

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