Dallas heartthrob, 78, who left fans swooning in his speedo also starred on Planet of the Apes and Batman… can you guess who?
A smoldering 1980s heartthrob who left legions of TV watchers swooning during the famous ‘dream season’ of Dallas surfaced this week aged 78.
His whole season of the soap opera was revealed at the end to be a nightmare suffered by Victoria Principal’s actress Pamela Ewing.
The son of a noted conductor, he began his screen career in the 1970s and landed a part on Roots: The Next Generations, the sequel to the iconic miniseries Roots, which explored the history and legacy of black American slavery.
Later that decade, he featured on the TV show of Planet of the Apes, and by the 1980s he was the star of one of the decade’s string of sword-and-sorcery epics.
He cut a sprightly figure when he was spotted in Los Angeles on Wednesday, running errands in a casual outfit of jeans and a matching blue t-shirt.
Can you guess who he is?
A smoldering 1980s heartthrob who left legions of TV watchers swooning during the famous ‘dream season’ of Dallas surfaced this week aged 78
He cut a sprightly figure when he was spotted in Los Angeles on Wednesday, running errands in a casual outfit of jeans and a matching blue t-shirt
He is none other than Marc Singer, best known for his roles as Matt Cantrell on Dallas and the title character in the 1982 fantasy epic The Beastmaster.
Singer featured on season nine 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 walks into the bathroom and is astonished to discover him alive in the shower, occasioning the reveal that the entire preceding season had only been a terrible dream from which she had now woken.
Singer was born in Vancouver and raised in Texas, the son of the respected violinist and conductor Jacques Singer and concert pianist Leslie Singer.
He inherited his parents’ artistic sensibility and fell in love with acting after he was introduced to Shakespeare at the age of 10 by his father.
However he was determined to stay away from his parents’ professions in classical music as he ‘didn’t want to spend my life indoors,’ he told interviewer Don Grigware.
After studying the Stanislavsky method and playing Shakespeare in repertory, he began building a Hollywood career with a small part on Roots: The Next Generation as the son of a couple played by Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland.
In 1982 he achieved Hollywood hunk status when he was cast as the leading man in The Beastmaster, a sword-and-sorcery epic that failed to hit at the box office but ultimately earned a devoted fanbase by repeatedly playing on television.
Singer starred as Dar, a musclebound barbarian who can commune with animals and is locked in a lifelong struggle against a sorcerer played by Rip Torn.
He is none other than Marc Singer, who is pictured on a 1984 episode of the game show Battle of the Network Stars filmed at Pepperdine University in Malibu
Singer featured on season nine of Dallas as a friend of Patrick Duffy’s character Bobby Ewing, whose tragic recent death hung over the other plotlines; pictured that year, 1986
In 1982 he achieved heartthrob status when he was cast in The Beastmaster, a sword-and-sorcery epic starring him as a man who can communicate with animals
Decades later, the movie’s leading man reflected that ‘one day an actor’s walking down the street and the next day he’s the Beastmaster. 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.’
Singer reprised the role of Dar in two sequels – the interdimensional 1992 romp Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time and then the made-for-television 1996 production Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus.
In 1984 and 1985 he led the cast of V, a sci-fi series about an alien invasion that only ran one season but managed over the years to accumulate a cult fanbase.
V also featured Robert Englund, who during the show’s run brief became a towering horror star as Freddy Krueger in The Nightmare on Elm Street.
Also in 1984, Singer turbocharged his sex symbol status by showing off his sculpted physique in a tiny speedo on Battle of the Network Stars.
The premise of the show was for personalities from the then three broadcast networks – ABC, NBC, CBS – to compete in athletic events.
Singer’s assigned sport was swimming, and his team was headed by none other than Mark Harmon, later the leading man of NCIS.
In 1984 and 1985 he led the cast of V, a sci-fi series about an alien invasion that only ran one season but managed over the years to accumulate a cult fanbase
On Battle of the Network Stars, Singer’s assigned sport was swimming, and his team was headed by none other than Mark Harmon, later 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 added.
In 1986, he joined Dynasty, and was candid at the time about the social discomfort he experienced as the newcomer in what was then already an established cast.
‘I’m shy at parties,’ he told film critic John C Tibbetts. ‘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 show’s cast as ‘a nice bunch’ and managed to make a distinct impression on the show as the dashing long-lost fried of Bobby Ewing, who the audience believed had recently been fatally run over by a car.
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 past few decades he has guested on a variety of hit shows including Murder, She Wrote; The Twilight Zone; The Young and the Restless and Arrow.
Singer also devotedly pursued his love of stage acting alongside his screen career, working for the San Francisco-based American Conservatory Theater (ACT).
A local institution, the ACT has seen such talent pass through its company as Denzel Washington, Winona Ryder, Annette Bening, Don Johnson, Amy Irving, Teri Hatcher, Harry Hamlin, Elizabeth McGovern and Sinners actor Delroy Lindo.
The ACT also operates a youth program that trained such future stars as Zendaya, Brie Larson, Milo Ventimiglia and Darren Criss.
His representative confirmed to the Daily Mail that Singer is still auditioning for various screen roles, both in film and on TV.
On the personal front, Singer was married to M*A*S*H alumna Haunani Minn from 1974 until her death in 2014, and they welcomed a daughter called Phoebe, 35.