Full Metal Jacket actor Kevyn Major Howard has died after a short hospitalization, though an official cause of death hasn’t been confirmed at publication. He is best known for portraying Rafterman in the Stanley Kubrick Vietnam war epic, working alongside Matthew Modine’s Joker with Stars and Stripes as a combat photographer.
According to TMZ, he passed at a hospital in Las Vegas surrounded by friends and family. The outlet notes that he had been hospitalized for weeks with respiratory issues. Howard got his start in the ’70s after moving from Montreal to Los Angeles, landing his first role with Paramount in The Serial alongside Martin Mull, Tuesday Weld and Sally Kellerman.
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He would later star opposite Charles Bronson in Death Wish II, following it up in 1983 in Sudden Impact opposite Clint Eastwood. Funny enough, his fictional role from Full Metal Jacket helped paint his post-Hollywood career as a headshot photographer. In the 2001 BBC documentary The Human Face, he was dubbed the “King of the Hollywood headshot” and goes into his philosophy behind a headshot photograph.
According to TMZ, Howard and Full Metal Jacket co-star Matthew Modine remained friends for years after the production. His family shared that the two had spoken on the phone shortly before Howard passed.
“Kevyn Major Howard gave and gave and gave so much to the world and especially the women and men of our armed forces,” Modine wrote on Instagram. “He became infamous for his portrayal of Rafterman in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. His portrayal gave him a unique entree into the world of the US Marine Corps. This led him on a decades long journey to be in service to our nation’s bravest.”
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