By Roger Alford
Kentucky Today
Tough guy actor Sonny Landham, who brought his unfettered bravado to Kentucky politics in a run for U.S. Senate a decade ago, has died at 76.
Landham had played alongside Arnold Schwarznegger, Sylvester Stalone, Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in action films that included “Predator” and “48 Hrs.”
Landham’s sister, Dawn Boehler, told The Associated Press that he died from congestive heart failure Thursday at a Lexington hospital.
Actor Sonny Landham (File photoe)
Ken Moellman, who was chairman of the Kentucky Libertarian Party in 2008 when Landham made a brief challenge to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before withdrawing, remembered the actor as a jovial, good-natured man with an infectious laugh.
“He was a larger-than-life personality,” Moellman said. “He faced adversity early in life. He found religion later in life. That’s something anyone can admire.”
Landham, who was of Cherokee and Seminole descent, was perhaps best known for his role facing an alien in the 1987 Schwarzenneger film “Predator.”
In the aftermath of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, Landham was sentenced to prison for arguing with his ex-wife in recorded telephone calls. He spent nearly three years in prison until an appeals court ordered his release, concluding that while comments he made in the phone calls were emotionally charged, they were neither threats nor obscene.
Landham said he was imprisoned for using the same kinds of harsh words that many spouses exchange in heated arguments. He sought an apology from the federal authorities who put him behind bars.
“I have been an actor, but I am also a human being,” he said at the time. “Nobody deserves this.”
The Rev. Ed Talley, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Ashland, baptized Landham after his release from prison.
“We all have a pilgrimage and sometimes that takes us through some deep valleys in life,” Talley said. “If we look to God for guidance and seek his will, those experiences can be a blessing.”
Landham survived by his son, William, and daughter, Priscilla.
