Gil Gerard, actor best known for playing ‘Buck Rogers,’ dead at 82

Gil Gerard, the actor best known for playing the title space hero in “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” died Tuesday at age 82, his wife announced.

“Early this morning Gil – my soulmate – lost his fight with a rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer. From the moment when we knew something was wrong to his death this morning was only days,” Janet Gerard wrote on Facebook.

“No matter how many years I got to spend with him it would have ever been enough.  Hold the ones you have tightly and love them fiercely.

“Buck Rogers” was based on Philip Francis Nowlan’s comic strip, which first hit US newspapers in 1929. Gerard took his first turn as the debonair NASA Capt. William “Buck” Rogers in a 1979 film, with the TV show airing on NBC later that year and running for 32 episodes until it was canceled in April 1981.

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