Eugene Clark (born December 3, 1951) is an American-Canadian

character actor A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to ...

and former football player.

Early life

Clark was born in

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough C ...

. He attended

Riverside Polytechnic High School Riverside Polytechnic High School is a four-year public high school in Riverside, California, United States, and part of the Riverside Unified School District. The current facility, located on Victoria Avenue, was opened in September 1965; the ...

Career

Football

He was an actor four years before he began playing college football and he was an all-conference

offensive guard Offensive may refer to: * Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative * Offensive (military), an attack * Offensive language ** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict in ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

. Named to the first All-Star teams for both the

Pacific-8 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Divisio ...

and the

West Coast Athletic Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting o ...

, Clark also received All Star All American Honorable Mention Laurels, played in the

Hula Bowl The Hula Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game held annually, usually in January. From inception through the 2021 playing, it was held in Hawaii; since the 2022 edition, it has been played in Orlando, Florida. The game was first st ...

and was selected by the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Stee ...

in the ninth round of the

1975 NFL Draft The 1975 National Football League draft was held January 28–29, 1975, at the New York Hilton at Rockefeller Center in New York City, New York. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Atlanta Falcons selected quarterback Steve Bartkows ...

. While he did not appear in a

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

game, he did play in the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ...

for 20 games for the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

(in 1977 and 1978).

Acting

Clark had a prominent co-starring role as Sid Gomez in the 1990s

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

show '' William Shatner's Tek War''. He also appeared on ''

Night Heat ''Night Heat'' is a Canadian police crime drama series that aired on both CTV in Canada and CBS in the United States. Original episodes were broadcast from 1985 to 1989. ''Night Heat'' was the first Canadian original drama series that was also ...

'', '' RoboCop: Prime Directives'', ''

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology series, anthology television program, television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dysto ...

'', ''

Side Effects In medicine, a side effect is an effect, whether therapeutic or adverse, that is secondary to the one intended; although the term is predominantly employed to describe adverse effects, it can also apply to beneficial, but unintended, consequence ...

'', ''

Tropical Heat ''Tropical Heat'' (known as ''Sweating Bullets'' in the United States) is a Canadian action series produced in co-operation with Mexico and Israel that aired between April 8, 1991 to October 18, 1993. The series ran for three seasons totaling 6 ...

'', '' Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye'', '' The L.A. Complex'', and made a

cameo Cameo or CAMEO may refer to: * Cameo appearance, a brief appearance of a known figure in a film or television show * Cameo (carving), a method of carving, making use of layers of different colours, or an item made with such a method Music * ...

in '' Trailer Park Boys: The Movie''. He also starred in the

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network based in New York City and owned by Paramount Global. It was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, at the time a division of Warner Communic ...

film '' Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story'', '' Fighting the Odds: The Marilyn Gambrell Story, and the thriller ''Legend of the Mountain Witch''. Clark played the role of Mufasa in the

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Broadway production of ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 32nd Disney animated feature film and the fifth produced during the Disney Renaissance, ...

'' for two years. Clark's best-known theatrical film role was in

George A. Romero George Andrew Romero (; February 4, 1940 – July 16, 2017) was an American-Canadian filmmaker, writer, editor and actor. His ''Night of the Living Dead'' series of films about an imagined zombie apocalypse began with the 1968 film of the ...

's ''

Land of the Dead ''Land of the Dead'' (also known as ''George A. Romero's Land of the Dead'') is a 2005 post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by George A. Romero; the fourth of Romero's six ''Living Dead'' movies, it is preceded by ''Night of the Liv ...

'' as the head

zombie A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in wh ...

, "Big Daddy".

Filmography

Film

Television

References

Notes

External links

* 1955 births Living people African-American male actors African-American players of American football African-American players of Canadian football American football offensive guards American male film actors American male television actors Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Canadian Screen Award winners Canadian football offensive linemen Canadian male film actors Canadian male television actors Male actors from Los Angeles Players of American football from Los Angeles Players of American football from Tampa, Florida Players of Canadian football from Los Angeles Players of Canadian football from Tampa, Florida Riverside Polytechnic High School alumni Toronto Argonauts players UCLA Bruins football players {{offensive-lineman-1950s-stub