Reggie Bannister has died. Bannister was best known as “Reggie,” the heroic ice cream man, from the Phantasm series, an iconic horror hero who survived the Tall Man across five movies. Dubbed the “hardest working man in horror” by his Phantasm maestro Don Coscarelli, Bannister died on August 9 at his California cabin, his wife, Gigi, confirmed to TMZ. No cause of death was immediately reported, but Bannister suffered from Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease and entered hospice care last February. He was 80.
“In the Phantasm series, only Reggie could turn a simple role as an ice cream vendor sidekick into an unlikely action hero for the ages,” Coscarelli wrote on Facebook. “He channeled himself into that role. All the fans who met him at the horror conventions could attest that in person, Reg was cool, funny, loyal, and steadfast. Reggie the character was Reggie the friend. In real life, he embodied all the qualities of his character in Phantasm, and no one questioned that Reg was that guy, the one willing to lay his body down on the fires of hell for his friends.”
Born September 29, 1945, in Long Beach, California, Bannister attended Long Beach City College and found early success as a folk musician. Performing with the Greenwood County Singers, he scored a hit with “The New Frankie And Johnny Song,” co-written by Shel Silverstein, and performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon after, he was drafted into the military and shipped to Vietnam. As a head radio operator for an automatic weapons specialty group, he lost some of his hearing and was exposed to Agent Orange. “The main thing I didn’t like being a part of was being the killing machine, but then as citizens, when this country goes to war we’re all part of the killing machine, aren’t we?” Bannister said in 2017. “We don’t really have a say in what’s going on.”
After returning from war, Bannister used the G.I. Bill to study acting, eventually meeting Coscarelli in a Long Beach dive bar to discuss the director’s first movie, 1975’s Jim, The World’s Greatest. It began a lifelong collaboration between Coscarelli and Bannister that continued into the Phantasm franchise in 1979. The film, with its inventive effects and off-beat sense of humor, was an immediate cult hit, thanks in large part to Bannister’s performance. Coscarelli wrote the role of Reggie for Bannister, based it on his personality, and gifted the series an honorable and loyal everyman who challenged typical notions of the action hero. The guitar-playing and endlessly affable Bannister took the orb and ran with it, becoming an essential part of the series and starring in all five installments. The Phantasm movies made Bannister a regular in independent horror movies. Throughout his career, Bannister also starred in Wishmaster, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and Bubba Ho-Tep.
Bannister is survived by his wife, Gigi, and daughter Ellen.
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