The Untold Truth Of The Late Carl Weathers

An actor who left behind performances that have impacted audiences for generations, Carl Weathers came to fame playing Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" franchise. But outside the ring, Weathers might be best known for a pair of science fiction roles, as CIA Agent Dillon in the 1987 sci-fi action classic "Predator" and as bounty hunter Greef Karga in "The Mandalorian." But those were hardly his only roles, which also included turns in the cult favorite "Action Jackson" and the '90s comedy classic "Happy Gilmore" among countless others.

Known for his gentle personality, Weathers excelled at playing the toughest of characters, including as a fictionalized version of himself in "Arrested Development." Sadly, Weathers passed away in early 2024, just two weeks after his 76th birthday. He left behind a legacy of strength and power, but also one of determination, as his late-career resurgence on "The Mandalorian" — which earned him his first Emmy nomination after a 50-year career — proves that it's never too late for a comeback. You may have always been a huge fan of the man under the mustache, but there's still a lot you may not know about him. So here is the untold truth of Carl Weathers.

If you followed Carl Weathers' career through the years it won't come as any surprise to learn that before he was actor he was a professional football player. But there's a lot you may not know about how he went from budding college athlete to NFL star before he made the leap to the big screen. 

Born in New Orleans, Weathers loved performing on the stage. But sports is where he really shined, earning a scholarship at his hometown's St. Augustine High School. After moving to California for his senior year, he graduated in 1966. Subsequently, Weathers first attended Long Beach City College, then transferred to San Diego State thanks to a football scholarship, and that's where his football career really took off as a defensive end.

In 1970, Weathers got his shot at the pros. Though he went undrafted, he was good enough for the then-Oakland Raiders to give him a tryout, and he earned a spot on the team that season as a linebacker. He played alongside Raiders greats Jim Otto, Gene Upshaw, and Ken Stabler as the team advanced to the Conference Championship that season. The following year, Weathers was released by the team, but he caught on with the Canadian Football League, signing briefly with the BC Lions. "I was good enough to fool 'em, but never dedicated enough to become a great player," Weathers told the Washington Post in 1979. "The great ones are willing to work harder."

In 1987, Carl Weathers played CIA agent Al Dillon in "Predator." Alongside Weathers were '80s action stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, and Bill Duke, and while filming in the very real jungle, the group of actors had to go to great lengths to stay in shape. But thanks to superstar Schwarzenegger, who arrived on location with his own personal gym, the entire cast had everything they needed to ensure they had well-muscled physiques.

"There was a subtle sort of a competition [among the cast], I think," said co-star Shane Black in "If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It," a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the film. Weathers, for his part, revealed that while the rest of the cast was pumping iron and getting into rock solid shape, he wanted them to think that he didn't need it at all, and so worked out in secret.

"[I'd] get up at four in the morning because you want that pump," Weathers said. "But you don't want the other guys to see you getting that pump because when you walk onto the set, you know, and you look that good, it's gotta be natural. You can't work out that hard. Nobody does. God just blessed you," he said with a sly smile. He said he wouldn't even work out if there were other guys in the gym and would instead wait until they left. According to producer John Davis, the rest of the cast, led by Arnie, got up and started working out an hour and a half after Weathers.

Following "Predator," Carl Weathers tried his hand at leading his own action movies, to mixed results. He had a good start with "Action Jackson" in 1988, one of the decade's most underrated action movies, but his 1992 effort "Hurricane Smith" didn't fare quite as well. There he played a similar gun-toting hero, but the failure of the film wasn't just at the box office, because Weathers also suffered a serious mishap during production in Australia that shattered a tooth.

"In the final sequence, Hurricane Smith runs toward a helicopter fleeing with our heroine, and makes a grab for the skid," said director Colin Budds, as relayed by FilmInk. "The steel skid was suspended from a crane, and Carl enthusiastically hurled himself upward, driving his front teeth into the unforgiving skid." According to Budds, the hit smashed up at least one front tooth, snapping it cleanly in two. Budds described Weathers' reaction to the incident as a "meltdown" and said he grew weary when Weathers wanted to head back to the U.S. for treatment. "He was immediately organizing flights back to a specialist in Los Angeles," he said. "We had freeways, electricity, and spoke approximately the same language, but clearly we didn't have advanced dental care."

Reason eventually prevailed, however, and Budds was able to coax his star to stay in the country and see a local dentist Budds was familiar with. "About two hours later, and with that perfect smile restored," he said, "he declared my dentist a genius."

Many of Carl Weathers' iconic movie moments were as Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" films, but "Predator" offered up a few as well. Starring with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1987 action movie, Weathers was half of one of the most Earth-shattering, bicep-breaking handshakes in movie history, when his character Dillon greets Schwarzenegger's Dutch. The two clasp hands, and their muscles flex to superhuman degrees, as each one tries to get the better of the other.

Though Schwarzenegger comes out on top, Weathers' character proves he can hold his own against the cigar-chomping Dutch. Yet the way it played out in the final film almost didn't happen, and it was Weathers himself who insisted on one major change. "It was scripted that he was going to win, but of course I am not going to concede that without making him work for it," Weathers said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. As a result, the final grip was held by both actors as Dillon flexed to hold Dutch at bay, only willing to give after several intense seconds. "That is a part of who I am and a part of who he is," Weathers said.

He doesn't always have it, but Carl Weathers' thick mustache might be one of his most identifiable traits. He sports it in all four of his appearances as Apollo Creed. He has a solid cookie duster in "Action Jackson" and "Predator" too, and he's so well-known for it that almost every subsequent role sees him with hair on his lip, including in "The Mandalorian" in a galaxy far, far away. In 2016, Weathers was officially recognized for his shameful tickler when he was inducted into the International Mustache Hall of Fame.

The first class of inductees was just a year prior, when Mark Twain, Freddie Mercury, and Tom Selleck (among others) formed the founding members. Also inducted were "Star Wars" icon Billy Dee Williams, U.S. President Chester A. Arthur, and artist Salvador Dali. But it wasn't just real people who found a spot in the Hall of Fame, as both Mario and Luigi of "Super Mario Bros." fame both earned a nod. Sadly, we can't find any evidence that the Hall has admitted new members since 2017.

When director Ryan Coogler revived the "Rocky" franchise for "Creed" in 2015, Carl Weathers told The Detroit News that the spin-off meant the legacy of his character would continue. But about a decade earlier there was no such excitement when Sylvester Stallone directed and starred in "Rocky Balboa," the long-awaited sixth film in the "Rocky" series. That's because he and Stallone had a disagreement over the making of the movie that led to a falling out between the two actors that lasted for years.

It all started when Sly called up his old friend to ask permission to use archival footage from a previous "Rocky" movie in the upcoming sequel. As Stallone said in a chat with Ain't it Cool News in 2006, they couldn't come to an agreement because Weathers demanded "thousands of dollars" for two seconds of footage. But that's not all: some sources, like The Inquisitr, alleged that Weathers also wanted a role in the sequel — although his character was killed off in "Rocky IV."

How would Apollo Creed have been resurrected from the dead more than 15 years after he'd been killed on-screen? Nobody knows, but it was important enough for Weathers that after the negotiations broke down, he didn't speak to Stallone for years.

Light on his feet and loud-mouthed even in the ring, the character Apollo Creed seems to have been directly inspired by real-life boxer Muhammad Ali. If he was, it probably wasn't lost on the People's Champion, who made a point to confront Carl Weathers any time he ran into him. Gaseous Cassius wasn't offended, though, but it did spark a strange relationship between the two men.

Just how strange was it? Well, Ali seemed to think that Weathers was a boxer himself because through the years he would repeatedly challenge the actor to some mock fisticuffs. "One time in Beverly Hills," Weathers told The Hollywood Reporter, "I was sitting outside a restaurant and Ali was coming down the street .... and Ali goes, 'Apollo Creed!'" Heading over to say hello, he said, Ali put up his dukes and started taking jabs at the "Rocky" star. "There is Muhammad and I standing on the sidewalk throwing punches. It was so bizarre. It was all just in good fun, of course," he said. But that wasn't the only incident. He said that he also encountered the world-famous boxer at 11:30 at night in a New York hotel lobby. "And he makes me get up to make sure I know he can still whip me," Weather said. "He is a great man."

Over the years, there have been many actors who almost starred in "Star Trek" movies and TV shows. From Eddie Murphy famously being offered a part in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" to Edward James Olmos nearly nabbing the role of Captain Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." But believe it or not, Carl Weathers was another, and if things had broken differently it could have been Apollo Creed himself headlining a "Star Trek" series in the 1990s.

It was early that decade when Paramount was casting for "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," and based on the studio's wish list that included James Avery, Lou Gosset, Jr., and Vondie Curtis-Hall, they had their heart set on casting an African American to play series lead Benjamin Sisko. Sure enough, it was later revealed that Carl Weathers had auditioned for the role himself. Though little is known as to why he didn't get the part, or if he was ever offered the role, it would seem he was the exact kind of actor they were looking for. Ultimately, though, the studio went with "Spenser: For Hire" star Avery Brooks, who played Sisko for all seven seasons of the series.

Thanks to Arnold's private gym on the set of "Predator," Carl Weathers was able to get ripped. But that's not the only thing that Arnold did for Weathers while they were working together on the iconic sci-fi flick. He also gave Weathers a few of his cigars during filming, something he'd never tried before. "I, being the athlete that I am, and the clean-living person that I am, never in a million years would let tobacco touch my lips, absolutely not," Weathers said in a behind-the-scenes documentary.

But during the shoot, Arnold told his co-star that he found cigars relaxing and urged him to try one. Cigar Aficianado Magazine covered the incident in 1996 in an article titled "The World According to Arnold," where Schwarzenegger says that, at first, Weathers would just chew on them. Then, over time, Weathers became more curious and decided to light one up for real, and before he realized it, he was hooked. "By the time the movie was half done, [Weathers] had his manager and his agent flying in boxes and boxes of Ashtons and Pléiades," Schwarzenegger told the magazine, referring to the expensive cigar brands. "He was smoking up a storm. I had to say to him, 'Carl, you're not supposed to smoke from 7 in the morning to 7 at night.'"

Carl Weathers may have broken a tooth on the set of "Hurricane Smith," but that's an easy enough fix for a good dentist (even an Australian one). Another injury he sustained during filming a different movie, however, proved far more serious, at least in terms of its long-term effects. While it wasn't an injury he talked about at the time, in the years since he's opened up about what happened.

"I didn't tell anyone because, you know, I'm tough, man," he told GQ in 2020. "I hurt my back and actually, to this day, it still really bothers me, because it was right on the spine." So what happened that could have left as indomitable a figure as Carl Weathers sore for so many years? "It was a blind fall," he said. "There are stunt bags, which, maybe are like 2 feet tall. But the bag wasn't pushed all the way against the wall." With the bags not properly set, Weathers landed awkwardly, with his body pinned on the giant safety bag and his tailbone trapped against a wall.

"I felt the pain and the burning sensation immediately," he said. He kept filming anyway, doing at least three more takes, but it was years later that an official diagnosis revealed how serious an injury it really was. "I fractured two vertebrae," Weathers revealed. "There were three or four years there where I was just in excruciating pain."

At the time of his casting in "Rocky," Carl Weathers was mostly an unknown actor. He'd appeared in a handful of blaxploitation movies and made guest appearances on some TV shows, but nobody around Hollywood was calling him to star in the next big movie. That is, until the filmmakers found themselves struggling to cast the character, with their first pick Ken Norton (a pro boxer) deemed too tall in comparison to Sylvester Stallone. Hearing word that Stallone was seeking someone else, Weathers' agent recommended his up-and-coming client.

"Carl came in and told us how he was right for the part," said Stallone in "The Official Rocky Scrapbook" (via Secsports.com). Weathers was given a chance to audition opposite Stallone, but he was told only that he'd be reading with the film's writer. Of course, because Stallone was also relatively unknown, Weathers didn't realize he was also going to be the film's star. While Stallone liked Weathers' reading, Weathers wasn't feeling confident and turned to the film's producers, telling them, "Oh, I would have done much, much better if you had given me a real actor to read with." But Stallone wasn't insulted, feeling the comment was just the right attitude for the character of Apollo Creed ... and the rest is history.

His "Predator" co-star Jesse Ventura is a military veteran, but Carl Weathers never served his country as a member of the armed forces. He did, however, have the opportunity to offer up his talents to the U.S. government in a different way: as an acting coach to help make battle simulations more realistic. 

It happened during the Iraq war in 2006, when training exercises were being conducted 150 miles from Los Angeles. There, just outside of Death Valley, a mock village was constructed to give U.S. soldiers a chance to practice combat scenarios before shipping off to Baghdad. And to help the actors playing Iraqi insurgents provide convincing performances, the "Rocky" actor was brought in to give acting lessons.

Weathers wasn't the only man from Hollywood involved. As detailed by The New York Times, Hollywood stuntmen and other actors were brought in with him to help better prepare fresh-faced recruits for the very real and very dangerous situations they'd face in the Middle East.

The fourth "Rocky" movie saw the death of Apollo Creed at the hands of Russian monstrosity Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in a brutal match. Weathers, as Creed, sustains a series of blows from Drago so punishing that he dies right there in the ring, in one of the most riveting "Rocky" fights as well as one of the most emotional moments of the entire franchise. To sell the illusion, Weathers gave the performance of a lifetime, and it was so convincing it didn't just move the audience ... it fooled even the movie's on-set medic.

"I thought, well Apollo goes down — number one, I don't want to catch myself, 'cause that gives it away," Weathers said in the Biography Channel documentary "The Rocky Saga: Going the Distance" (via ContactMusic.com). "And then I was doing this little twitching as I went down and the doctor really thought I'd got taken out. He came running up to me — 'Are you okay, are you alright?' I replied, 'Yeah, man!' He saw the twitching and thought I got tagged, man. It worked, it worked."