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Spencer Milligan, who was best known for playing Rick Marshall on the 1970s Saturday morning TV series Land of the Lost, has died. Milligan died at the age of 86 on April 18, but his death was only announced publicly yesterday by the actors who played his onscreen children in Land of the Lost, Wesley Eure and Kathy Coleman, per The Daily Mail.
In a video posted to Eure and Coleman’s Instagram pages, they appear together, and Eure says, “This is a video we didn’t want to have to make, but we just got confirmation that Spencer Milligan, our dad Rick Marshall on Land of the Lost, has passed away.”
He adds, “We had heard rumors, and finally it was confirmed and well… not an easy day.”
Coleman also notes, “I’m a little speechless. He was a true father to us all. Thank God we got to see him one last time in Milwaukee and spend some really beautiful moments with him. He was a great man. I really truly believe that. He was a good man through and through and he will be missed.”
Colman, Eure, and Milligan reunited in 2018 when they appeared together at Milwaukee’s Pop Con.
Land of the Lost was produced by Sid and Marty Krofft and depicted a man and his two kids who had to exist in a world populated by dinosaurs and lizard-like men known as Sleestak. The show only lasted for three seasons (and Milligan only starred in two of them before being replaced by Ron Harper), but it endures as a cult classic, and was successfully syndicated after it went off the air. A comedy film based on the show starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride and Anna Friel also came out in 2009.
In addition to Land of the Lost, Milligan appeared on TV shows like General Hospital, Gunsmoke, and Alice, as well as in the Woody Allen film Sleeper, before retiring from screen acting and returning home to Wisconsin, where he taught acting and directed local theater at the Third Avenue Playworks. He is survived by his wife, Kerry.
