Sad news from the world of giant arachnids. Patrick Muldoon, star of Starship Troopers, Ice Spiders and Spiders 3D, has passed away at the age of 57.
In Starship troopers, Patrick played Zander Barcalow, who was both a sporting rival and a love rival to Casper van Dien’s Johnny Rico. Annoyingly good looking and suitably smug, he played the role to perfection. Rico beats him at football, but Zander steals Rico’s girlfriend, who is Denise Richards, so he wins. Well, until this happens:
In Ice Spiders, Muldoon played the onomatopoeically named Dash Dashiell, a former ski star forced to out-ski giant spiders at a winter resort.
Dash Dashiell is up there with Johnny Rico on my all-time cool movie character names list, along with John Matrix, Johnny Utah, John McClane and Johnny Ringo. Basically, you’ve got a better chance of having an awesome name if it starts with ‘John.’ But I digress.
Before he made the move into giant spiderdom, Patrick Muldoon was best known for daytime soap Days of our Lives. He also featured in 1990s classics Saved by the Bell, Who’s the Boss? and Melrose Place, among many others.
He died of a heart attack at his home. Rest in peace, Patrick. For your contributions to arachnid cinema, I award you my highest honour – a full 8 legs out of 8 in my spider rating system.
