It’s April 6th, the birthday of Chuck Lamb, or as he’s been known in the movie industry, “Dead Body Guy.”
Yes, he’s made a living playing dead.
Ok, Lamb was also a computer programmer for an insurance company, but for years he dreamed of seeing his name in the credits of a movie or a TV show.
Not everyone gets a chance to play the starring roles, but if you’re in a detective show and you’re the body, the mystery that the lead characters are trying to solve, you have a pretty central role.
Lamb created a website, DeadBodyGuy.com, as a kind of portfolio.
His wife, Tonya, had taken photos of him as if he’d been electrocuted in the bathtub, or crushed by a garage door.
The site got so much attention, Lamb got to play a body on actual TV shows and movies, which he later said made him feel like “a six-foot-tall, 230-pound bald Cinderella.”
Some of his on-screen demises have been caused by the usual sorts of on-screen villainy, like being strangled.
Others have been a little more unusual, like the time he was ripped to pieces by a turkey under a curse.
A few years ago Lamb decided to scale back his work after a back injury – playing dead can be difficult, strenuous work – but he says he’d make an exception if the producers of Law & Order or The Walking Dead called.
Today’s also the birthday of Billy Dee Williams.
By the way, the “Dee” is short for “December,” his full middle name.
The onetime child actor left the business when he was a little older, but returned to acting as a way to make money to support his other passion: painting.
You have to expect Lando Calrissian’s place would be full of great art, right?
Why ‘Dead Body Guy’ is calling it quits on his acting career (As It Happens)
A Name in the Credits? Over His Dead Body (New York Times)
8 Suave Facts About Billy Dee Williams (Mental Floss)
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Chalk outline photo by Mike Andrews via Flickr/Creative Commons
