American actor Dan Haggerty July 10, 2010 (photo: AP)
American actor Dan Haggerty has died at 74 from cancer. He was best known for the title role in the 1970s film and TV series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.
Haggerty died in a hospital in Burbank, California after battling cancer for five months. Doctors discovered the cancer after he had surgery for back pain, Haggerty's family said in a statement.
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams tells the story of a mountain man who is forced to live in the wilderness after being wrongly accused of murder.
While on the run, he adopts an orphaned grizzly bear and names him Ben.
The film became the seventh high-grossing film of 1974 and the NBC network aired a TV series of the same name that ran from 1977 to 1978.
The film and the TV series were loosely based on the life of James Capen Adams, who trained bears in California in the mid-19th century.
Haggerty was born in Pound, Wisconsin. He grew up in a family that owned and operated a small wild animal attraction. There he helped raise wild animals, including a black bear that performed tricks. After high school, he moved to southern California to pursue acting.
Haggerty is survived by five children, two grandchildren, two sisters and three brothers.
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