Roddy Piper: filmography of the famous wrestler

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Roderick "Roddy" George Toombs, better known by his professional fighting name Roddy Piper, is a Canadian wrestler, film actor, stunt performer and voice actor. He performed in the ring in the form of a Scot and went to the fight to the sound of bagpipes and in a kilt.

Biography of Roddy Piper

Roddy was born on April 17, 1954 in Saskatoon, the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, and grew up in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. His parents were Eileen, nee Anderson, Toombs and Stanley Baird Toombs, an officer in the Royal Mounted Police.

As a teenager, he was expelled from school for bringing a blade to class, after which the actor quarreled with his father and left home. For some time, Roddy Piper wandered around hostels, youth hostels, ready to shelter a teenager, interrupted by odd jobs and worked in gyms, following orders from local fighters. Around this time, he learned to play the bagpipe, although the fighter himself has repeatedly stated that he does not remember where he picked it up.

Private life

In 1982 Roddy Pipermarried Kitty Jo Dittrich. Four children were born in the marriage: son Colton Baird Toombs, and daughters actress Ariel Teal, Falon Danica and Anastasia Shee Toombs. Colton followed in his father's footsteps and became a mixed martial artist.

In November 2006, a statement appeared on the official website of the wrestling association that Roddy was ill with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a malignant disease of the lymphoid tissue. A few months later, the actor underwent radiation therapy. At the age of sixty-one, as a result of cardiac arrest caused by hypertension, Piper passed away in his sleep at his home in Hollywood.

Wrestler Career

Roddy Piper, who looked very impressive in the photo, was the youngest fighter in the history of wrestling. He first appeared in the ring at the age of sixteen against Larry Anning. After ten seconds, Piper lost and earned only $25.

Roddy was a member of the Bad Boys team and was nicknamed "The Bully", considered by many to be the greatest wrestling villain of all time. In the forty-two years of his career, he won thirty-four titles, but never became a world champion, although he participated in many of the main events of the show. In 2005, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame (Professional Wrestling Hall).

Roddy Piper Movies

During and after his fighting career, Piper starred in dozens of low-budget B-movies. The most famous picture in which the wrestler played is the sci-fi horror film "Strangers Among Us" by the famous director John Carpenter.

Protagonist John Nada (played by Roddy Piper) has discovered that America's ruling class are aliens who hide their appearance and manipulate people. At the end of the film, John, of course, "turns the heat" on the aliens, and his line is: "I came here to chew gum and kick ass. But I ran out of gum, "became winged.

Another cult film where Roddy played the lead character was the science fiction action film Hell Comes to Frogtown. The plot takes place in a post-apocalyptic desert, where most of the population is unable to reproduce due to radioactive fallout.

In 1991, Piper, along with fellow wrestler Jesse Ventura, starred in the TV movie Tag Team about two police officers who were professional fighters. A year later, another action movie starring Roddy was released - "The Immortal Fight" directed by Dan Nair, with the classic East meets West scenario.

Roddy Piper has also guest-starred on several television projects: playing a fighter like himself in Walker Hard: Texas Justice episode "The Crusader" and on the Canadian-American series The Outer Limits. and in the television series RoboCop about a robot cop. He was the host of the British program "Celebrity Wrestling", in which a pair of teams of famous people competed in battle against each other.

In one episode of the ninth and throughout the fifth season of the black comedy sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, he played a professionalwrestler "Maniac" (Da Maniac), who was a parody of Mickey Rourke from the sports drama "The Wrestler".

The last films he worked in were: the action comedy "Black Dynamite", the comedy "Show Off" ("Fancy Pants") and the horror film "Wrestlers vs. Zombies".

After his death, the wrestler's body was cremated and the ashes scattered around his home in Gaston, Oregon.