Reggie Bannister, who played Reggie in the hit Phantasm horror film series, has died.
Bannister’s wife, Gigi, told TMZ that the actor died peacefully at their home in the San Bernardino County mountains early Sunday. He was 80.
Gigi Bannister told TMZ that the actor was suffering from Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease. She also noted for TMZ that he was exposed to Agent Orange while serving in the military during the Vietnam War.
The actor’s character, Reggie, gained popularity throughout filmmaker Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm movies as he battled the evil Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).
Bannister appeared as Reggie in Phantasm (1979), Phantasm II (1988), Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994), Phantasm: Oblivion (1998) and Phantasm: Raveger (2016). At the beginning of the film series, Reggie, an ice cream man, joins 13-year-old Mike Pearson (A. Michael Baldwin) and his older brother, Jody (Bill Thornbury), in their quest to destroy the murderous mortician the Tall Man.
Reggie Bannister’s wife, Gigi Bannister, worked on makeup and special effects for the fourth and fifth Phantasm films. According to TMZ, Bannister and Gigi were introduced to each other by horror legend Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes, Weird Science) in 1995. Reggie and Gigi Bannister married in 2001.
Reggie Bannister Appeared In More Than 50 Films
Born Reginald Horace Bannister on Sept. 29, 1945, in Long Beach, Calif., Bannister made his film debut in the 1975 drama Jim, the World’s Greatest, written and directed by Don Coscarelli and Craig Mitchell.
The film, which starred Gregory Harrison, marked Coscarelli, Bannister and Angus Scrimm’s first big-screen collaboration before they went to make the first chapter in the Phantasm horror film series four years later. A year after Jim, the World’s Greatest, Coscarelli and Bannister collaborated on the 1976 comedy drama Kenny & Co.
Apart from the Phantasm films, Bannister played a rest home administrator in Coscarelli’s 2002 horror comedy Bubba Ho-Tep, starring Evil Dead movie franchise icon Bruce Campbell.
Bannister also starred in such horror films as Wishmaster, Fallen Angel, Carnies, Sawblade, Primitive and The Obsidian Curse, as well as the horror comedies Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, Doctor Spine and Bonejangles.
Bannister’s last film role was in the 202o horror thriller Killer Waves II.