Sam Bottoms, Film and TV Actor, Dies at 53

Sam Bottoms, a film and television actor who was the third in a family of four acting brothers, died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 53.

The cause was a brain tumor, his sister-in-law Emily Lansbury said.

With his older brothers Timothy and Joseph and his younger brother, Ben, Mr. Bottoms was a regular presence on the large and small screens in the 1970s and afterward. He was perhaps best known for his performance as Lance Johnson, the surfer turned Vietnam patrol-boat gunner in “Apocalypse Now” (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Mr. Bottoms’s other films include “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (1976) and “Bronco Billy” (1980), both directed by Clint Eastwood; “Gardens of Stone” (1987), directed by Mr. Coppola; and “Seabiscuit” (2003), directed by Gary Ross, in which he played an assistant trainer. He also appeared on television in the mini-series “East of Eden” (1981) and in numerous shows and commercials.

Samuel John Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Oct. 17, 1955. At 15 he was cast in his first film, “The Last Picture Show” (1971), after he visited his brother Timothy on the set and was spotted by the director, Peter Bogdanovich. Mr. Bogdanovich gave him the role of Billy, the retarded boy who sweeps the streets of his dusty Texas town.

Mr. Bottoms’s first marriage, to Susan Arnold, ended in divorce. Besides his brothers, he is survived by his parents, James and Elizabeth Chapman Bottoms; his second wife, Laura Condé Bickford, a film producer; and two daughters from his first marriage, Clara and Io.