Longtime actor-producer Winston Rekert, a performer in Nelvana's short-lived Star Wars spin-off Droids, died early Friday at home in his native Vancouver of cancer, friends confirmed Friday. He was 63.
Rekert had been battling the disease for three years.
He voiced Sise Fromm for four episodes of Droids, then Mungo Baobab in another four episodes. The series ran on ABC for 13 episodes in 1985.
As well, he was Mungo Baobab in the 1986 animated TV-movie Star Wars: The Great Heep. And he was in the voice cast of the two-minute short The Art of Drowning.
Raised in Vancouver, he won two Gemini Awards -- the Canadian equivalent of Emmys -- for his roles in Cold Squad (2001) and Blue Murder (2003).
In April, the Union of B.C. Performers gave him the Sam Payne Lifetime Achievement Award, "which recognize a Union member's accumulative outstanding body of work in the industry."
Rekert was most prominent as co-creator and star of Neon Rider, a late 1980s and 1990s TV series filmed in British Columbia. He also did some producing, directing and writing for the show, in which he starred as a therapist who ran a ranch for troubled teens.
In 1989, he created the syndicated series with producer Danny Virtue, his childhood friend.
Neon Rider, which ran for 64 episodes, helped cement Vancouver's reputation as a production center for movies and television.
"He got half the town started in this business," Virtue said. "He was cherished by a lot of people. I've known him and loved him since we were kids. We lived together in L.A. for a couple of years, and came back here to put Neon Rider together."
He was born on July 10, 1949. Like his father, he worked as a logger before becoming an actor.
Rekert's theater, TV and film career lasted for over 40 years. He starred alongside Jane Fonda, Meg Tilly and Anne Bancroft in the 1985 film Agnes of God.
He had been nominated for nine other Gemini awards.
Winston Rekert is survived by his wife Lydia, his adult sons Carson and Dylan, and their mother Pat.
