Actors - Charles Rocket

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Charles Rocket

	Actors - Charles Rocket

Charles Rocket, born Charles Claverie (August 24, 1949 – October 7, 2005), was an American film and television actor born in Bangor, Maine, USA. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design in the late 1960s and was part of the Rhode Island underground scene in the 1970s. He made several short films and fronted his band, the Fabulous Motels. He later anchored the local news at Channel 12 WPRI. He made his network debut on the popular program Saturday Night Live
.

Rocket was cast for the 1980–81 season, which followed the departure of the remaining members of the show's popular original cast and original executive producer Lorne Michaels. Singled out by new executive producer Jean Doumanian as the star of her new ensemble, Rocket was promoted as "kind of a cross between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase." Rocket was given the role of anchor for the show's Weekend Update news parody, and was featured in many sketches.

The new cast (except for Joe Piscopo and later Eddie Murphy) was not at all popular with audiences, a reflection, perhaps, of the overall poor quality of the writing. Though not very successful as the "Update" anchor, Rocket was somewhat of a standout due to his infamous "Rocket Reports" segments. (Viewers have noted, however, that his style on Weekend Update was evidently later adopted by Dennis Miller.)

Rocket would eventually doom both his and Doumanian's tenures on the show with one word. The February 21, 1981 episode hosted by Dallas star Charlene Tilton featured a parody of the famed "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of Dallas. In the sketch, Rocket was shot in the chest by a sniper. At the end of the show when cast members traditionally gather around the host to say good night, Tilton asked Rocket how he felt about being shot. A wheelchair-bound Rocket audibly mumbled that he'd like to know "who the fuck did it", followed by the cast and audience reacting with shock and embarrassed laughter. The incident seemed to encapsulate all that was wrong with Saturday Night Live at the time, and both Rocket and Doumanian were soon fired (along with most of the writers and fellow cast members). Piscopo and Murphy were the only cast members to survive the ax, and new producer Dick Ebersol replaced most other cast members later.

Rocket recovered from this early career setback and acted in many films, including Earth Girls Are Easy
, It's Pat, Dances with Wolves
, and Dumb and Dumber, often portraying the antagonist. On the small screen, he managed to secure a series of guest spots on several 1980s sitcoms and also played rival network president Ned Grossberg on the 1980s cyberpunk series Max Headroom.

As the 1990s wore on, beneficial roles were few and far between, as Rocket struck out in such box office duds as Titan A.E.
and Fathers' Day and in the short-lived 2000 John Goodman series Normal, Ohio on the Fox network. Nevertheless, he found limited success in guest spots on many popular television programs in the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s, including The King of Queens, Touched By An Angel, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the last of which marked his final appearance on network television. He also lent his voice to popular video game titles "Star Wars: Starfighter," "Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter" (as the character "Nym" in both games), "Descent 3," and "Age of Mythology."

His final film role came in the 2003 movie Shade, starring Sylvester Stallone and Melanie Griffith.

On October 7, 2005, Rocket's body was discovered by police in his yard in Canterbury, Connecticut; his throat had been cut. The Connecticut state medical examiner later ruled his death a suicide. He was 56, and is survived by his wife Beth and son Zane.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Charles Rocket ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Charles Rocket; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay