R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine Corps drill instructor known as the sadistic Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” died Sunday morning, according to Fox News, citing his longtime manager. He was 74.
From Fox 8:
The Kansas native enlisted in the Marine Corps and age 17 and spent 14 months in Vietnam before he was discharged in 1972, according to Fox News.
He served as a technical adviser in Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War epic, “Apocalypse Now,” in which he also had a small role as a helicopter pilot.
But Ermey didn’t get his big break until nine years later, in Kubrick’s own take on Vietnam, which also earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
From The Blaze:
Ermey stressed, “I’m an Independent, but I said something bad about the president. I had something unsavory to say about the president’s administration, and even though I did vote for him the first time around, I was blackballed,” Ermey said to Fox.
The typically jovial Ermey continued his rant about being excluded, “Do you realize I have not done a movie in five to six years? Why? Because I was totally blackballed by the… liberals in Hollywood,” he added.
TheBlaze reached out to Ermey for additional information on this story.
Ermey told TheBlaze he has never campaigned for a political candidate. Additionally, his 2008 vote for Obama may be related to Ermey’s lack of appreciation for Sen. John McCain and the senator’s refusal to support name change for the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Navy and Marines.
