Actor Peter Spellos had over 150 screen acting and vocal performance credits to his name, but genre fans are most likely to remember him as Orville Ketchum from the slasher movie Sorority House Massacre II and its companion piece Hard to Die, as well as the brief appearance he made as the character Tracy’s father in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Outside of horror, he’s best known for providing the voice of Sky-Byte in 39 episodes of the animated series Transformers: Robots in Disguise. Unfortunately, we have very sad news to share today, as it has been confirmed that Spellos has passed away at age 69 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Born on March 1, 1954, Spellos passed away yesterday, November 19th, at the Franciscan Hospice House in Indianapolis. His brother, James Spellos, notified TMZ that his family is planning an online “celebration of life” gathering for his fans.
Spellos was credited as G. Gordon Baer on his earliest animated series vocal performances. Sorority House Massacre II marked his screen acting debut in 1990, and since that film his movie and TV credits have included (in addition to Hard to Die and Freddy’s Dead) Growing Pains, The Guyver, Munchie, Hoffa, The Wonder Years, Little Miss Millions, Perry Mason: The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host, Dinosaur Island, Munchie Strikes Back, Possessed by the Night, In the Army Now, Dream On, Inner Sanctum II, Married… with Children, Bikini Drive-In, Sliders, Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds, Weird Science, Droid Gunner, Step by Step, Demolition High, Bound, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, City of Angels, Heartbreakers, Men in Black II, Thirteen Erotic Ghosts, NYPD Blue, ER, Bikini Chain Gang, The Bikini Escort Company, Yes Man, Without a Trace; Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place; and 26 episodes of American Dreams, among others. His voice acting credits include Digimon Data Squad, Naruto, Bleach, EverQuest II, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Digimon: Digital Monsters, Digimon Frontier: Island of the Lost Digimon, Digimon Adventure 02, Cowboy Bebop, Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran, Space Strikers, BattleTech: The Animated Series, Eagle Riders, and many more.
Since Hard to Die ended with the joking promise that Orville Ketchum would return in a movie called Orville in Orbit, fans spent decades hoping that film would actually get made. Sadly, while there was an announcement that it was finally going to happen in 2017, the project didn’t make it into production. So we missed our chance to see Spellos play Orville one last time.
I always enjoyed seeing Spellos show up in something I was watching. I’ll miss seeing him appear in something new – and I’ll always be disappointed that Orville in Orbit was never made.
Our sincere condolences go out to Peter Spellos’s family, friends, and fans.
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