Actor Robert Dix, best known for his role in the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, passed away on August 6, 2018 following respiratory failure. He was 83 years old. 

Robert Dix was born on May 8, 1935 in Los Angeles, California, as Robert Warren Brimmer. The son of late actor Richard Dix, he grew up delivering groceries to such actors as Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy Durante and Robert Cummings. He went on to study acting at the National Academy of Theater Arts in Pleasantville, before signing a seven-year deal with MGM when he was 18. During this time, he had small on-screen appearances in The Glass Slipper, Interrupted Melody, Love Me or Leave Me and I’ll Cry Tomorrow.

His most prominent role came as Crewman Grey in the sci-fi cult classic Forbidden Planet, wherein he gets zapped by the monster. When his contract was cut short after two years, Dix showed up on such TV Westerns as Gunsmoke, Death Valley Days, The Rifleman, and Rawhide and the 1969 biker flick Wild Wheels opposite Casey Kasem. Dix later visited the Western Costume Co. and purchased the same coat and vest his father had worn in Badlands of Dakota for his role in Deadwood ’76.

After transitioning to 20th Century Fox, Dix portrayed the youngest of the three heroic Bonnell brothers for director Sam Fuller’s Forty Guns. He went on to portray the brother of an outlaw, Frank James, in Young Jesse James. The handsome actor lended his talents to such B-grade horror movies as Blood of Dracula’s Castle, Satan’s Sadists, Hell’s Bloody Devils, and Horror of the Blood Monsters. Not only did he star in Five Bloody Graves, but he also wrote that one. 

More recently, Dix completed work on The Last Frankenstein from Gila Films, which is now listed as “in post production” on IMDb.

He is survived by his wife Lynette, children Jana and Robert, two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.