Mark Damon, the actor and business executive who starred in the 1960 film House of Usher, has died, multiple outlets report. He was 91 years old.
The actor turned businessman died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Sunday, May 12, his family told The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. His death came just days after the death of his House of Usher director Roger Corman at the age of 98.
Mark Damon, who starred in the Vincent Price horror classic House of Usher and the Spaghetti Western, before revolutionizing the foreign sales and distribution film business and producing feature films including 9 1/2 Weeks, Monster, and Lone Survivor.
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Damon died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Sunday, his daughter Alexis Damon Ribouet told The Hollywood Reporter.
Damon spent the first 20 years of his career as an actor, including nearly a dozen years as a leading man in Italian action films, before moving into the commercial arena.
Two films written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen brought him early success as executive producers: the German-language World War II drama Das Boot (1981), which received six Oscar nominations, and The NeverEnding Story (1984), a Big -Budget film fantasy film that featured a Damon-commissioned score by Giorgio Moroder for non-German audiences.
She shared an Independent Spirit Award with director Patty Jenkins and others for Monster (2003), in which Charlize Theron played Oscar-winning, real-life serial killer Eileen Wuornos.
Damon produced or executive produced nearly five dozen feature films during his career, among them Adrian Lyne’s 9 1/2 Weeks (1986), John Badham’s Short Circuit (1986), Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987), Stalingrad (1993), the. Forest. The Book (1994), Trey Parker’s Orgasmo (1997), A Dog of Flanders (1999), The Upside of Anger (2005), Baltasar Kormakur’s 2 Guns (2013), Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor (2013), The Last Full Measure ( 2019 ) ) and Willy’s Wonderland (2021).
In Damon’s acting career, he has won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer for House of Usher. He starred in Spaghetti Westerns and B-movies like Johnny Yuma and Black Sabbath.
He has also produced over 70 films such as The Neverending Story, Das Boot, Short Circuit, 8 Million Ways to Die and Wild Orchid. He produced the biopic Patty Jenkins’ Monster starring Charlize Theron, which won an Oscar under the lead actress category in 2003.
He is survived by his wife, Maggie Markov Damon; son Jonathan; Daughter Alexis Damon Ribouet and son-in-law Matthew Ribouet.
