Brad Johnson, star of the Always and Left Behind series, died at the age of 62.

WHEN HE WAS BORN?

Johnson, who was born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1959, began his professional rodeo career in 1984 when he was discovered by a casting director looking for cowboys to star in a beer commercial. Before he began acting, he worked as the Marlboro Man and modeled for Calvin Klein. His first appearance was in an episode of the CBS soap opera Dallas in 1986.

ACTOR BRAD JOHNSON DIED OF COVID-RELATED ILLNESS

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed on Thursday that actor Brad Johnson died in February as a result of COVID-19 complications. Many people remember him from Steven Spielberg’s 1989 fantasy drama always, in which he and Richard Dreyfuss compete for Holly Hunter’s heart. (Unfortunately for Richard, he is a ghost.) Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Johnson was a regular on television and in cable movies, and he co-starred in the Left Behind series. He was 62 years old at the time. Johnson, who grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona, dropped out of business school to pursue a rodeo scholarship at the College of Southern Idaho. He worked full-time on the rodeo circuit but injured his knee in the process. He worked full-time on the rodeo circuit before injuring his knee in 1986.

JOHNSON’S FIRST SIGNIFICANT ACTING ROLE

Always was Johnson’s first significant acting role, and while it didn’t launch him to stardom, he was never out of work, appearing in films such as The Philadelphia Experiment II and episodes of the Outer Limits reboot. In 1991, he co-starred with Danny Glover and Willem Dafoe in John Milius’ Flight of the Intruder, and he played Dr. Dominick O’Malley, Daphne Zuniga’s love interest on the mid-’90s nighttime soap Melrose Place. (Recall that there was a big fuss about him leaving for Bosnia and whether or not Jo Reynolds should accompany him.)