Sam Bottoms of 'Apocalypse Now' dies

December 18, 2008 Sam Bottoms, who had small but memorable roles in the 1970s classics "Apocalypse Now" and "The Last Picture Show," has died. Bottoms, one of four actor brothers, died Tuesday of brain cancer at his home in Los Angeles, wife Laura Bickford said. In "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War epic, Bottoms played pro surfer-turned-soldier Lance B. Johnson, who takes to the waves amid bombs and bullets under the orders of the maniacal, surfing-mad Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore played by Robert Duvall.

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