Whitney Rydbeck Dies: ‘Friday The 13th’ Star & Crash Test Dummy Actor Was 79

Whitney Rydbeck, an actor and mime known for his work in seatbelt PSAs and the Friday the 13th franchise, has died at age 79.

Rydbeck died Monday, July 15, of complications from cancer while in hospice in Chatsworth, California, longtime friend and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives director Tommy McLoughlin told The Hollywood Reporter.

In that sixth Friday the 13th installment, Rydbeck played Roy, a paintball player dismembered by serial killer Jason Voorhees.

 

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“We lost not only a truly funny comedian and actor … but one of the most good-hearted human beings I’ve ever known,” McLoughlin wrote on Instagram on Wednesday, July 17. “God bless you and rest in peace, Whitney Rydbeck. Our loss is heaven’s gain.”

Rydbeck’s other TV appearances over his nearly four-decade career included episodes of The Brady Bunch, M*A*S*H, Murder, She Wrote, 3rd Rock from the Sun, 7th Heaven, Living Single, and Scrubs. His film appearances, meanwhile, included Sleeper, Rocky II, and 1941.

But Rydbeck is also famous for starring alongside Tony Reitano as crash test dummies Larry and Vince in the “You Could Learn a Lot From a Dummy” series of seatbelt PSAs in the 1980s and 1990s.

Those Department of Transportation spots required 45 minutes of getting into costume, and the masks didn’t allow Rydbeck and Reitano to hear, see, or talk, as the duo explained to The Washington Post in 2010, when their costumes were donated to the National Museum of American History.

“God forbid you had to go to the bathroom,” Rydbeck said.

Rydbeck also told the newspaper he always wore seatbelts in cars, joking that he worried about inspiring a newspaper headline reading, “Actor Who Played Crash Dummy Died for Not Buckling Up.”

The actor — who also taught drama at Pasadena City College and joined McLoughlin in the Richmond Shepard Mime Troupe and the L.A. Mime Company — is survived by his girlfriend of 10 years, Claire.