R.I.P. - Carl Weathers (14 Jan 1948 - 1 Feb 2024)

You may have seen on national news and other sources that Rocky actor Carl Weathers, who played Apollo Creed, has passed aged 76 on 1 Feb.

He released, as far as we know, just one recording on Mirage in 1981, and what a recording, the beautiful ballad "You Ought To Be With Me". It peaked at #71 on the R&B chart in autumn 1981. He is credited as co-writing the song with Dwight Emile and the recording was produced by Hadley Murrell who also produced all three of Black Ice's albums.

The flip side, "That's Love Calling" is not too shabby either with producer Murrell and arranger Ray Jackson also given writing credits alongside Weathers and Emile.

Before his acting career commenced in earnest in 1975, Weathers was an NFL footballer working as an extra whilst still playing football. He featured initially in a couple of Blaxploitation movies in the mid 70s before securing the role as Apollo Creed in the first Rocky film in 1976 and continuing in the role for the next three sequels. His other major role was starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Predator in 1987 as Colonel Al Dillon.

He also featured in several well know US TV series in the 70s such as Six Million Dollar Man, Kung Fu and Starsky & Hutch. His last movie role was in Toy Story 4 in 2019 as the voice of Combat Carl  and last TV series the Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, in 2023 as Greef Karga and he also directed two episodes.

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