Dan Haggerty (born November 19, 1941, in
Hollywood, California) is an
American actor, best known for the title role in
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. He was born in
Hollywood, growing up amid the
Southern California bodybuilding lifestyle. He had early roles in
Muscle Beach Party and the
Elvis Presley film
Girl Happy. His ease in working with animals got him work as a trainer and handler for
Walt Disney films, and he found work as a
stuntman on the
Ron Ely's TV show
Tarzan.
Haggerty was a
free spirit, living in the
Malibu Canyons with his animals while making his own furniture and clothing. He also worked as a set builder on films. He worked on the
motorcycles featured in the film
Easy Rider, and had a
bit part as a "
hippie" in the movie. He showed up in several low-budget biker films of the era as both a supporting player and stuntman before being tapped to play the outdoorsman in the
independent film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. The picture was a surprise hit and spun off into a popular TV series that made Haggerty a household name.
His fame was fleeting, however, as a well-publicized drug arrest (supposedly for selling drugs to obtain money to treat his wife's cancer) and motorcycle crash kept him from work. He appeared often during the late 1980s in the
direct-to-video boom, but by the early 1990s devoted his energies to the
Studio City restaurant "Haggerty's Bistro" and marketing his own
barbecue sauce. He continued to work as both an actor and
infomercial spokesman.