(NEXSTAR) – David Harris, the actor who played Cochise in the cult film “The Warriors,” died Friday at the age of 75, his daughter Davina Harris said.
Davina Harris, speaking with The New York Times, said her father’s cause of death was cancer.
Harris has over 50 screen credits on IMDb, which include appearances on popular shows such as “The White Shadow,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “MacGyver” and “NYPD Blue.” But perhaps his most recognizable role was Cochise in “The Warriors,” the Walter Hill-directed film about a gang from Brooklyn who are wrongly accused of killing a gang leader in the Bronx.
The film took on cult status in the years since its release, spawning parodies, video games and even a 28-mile marathon that retreads the characters’ journey from the Bronx to Coney Island.
“What Walter did with the movie, it wasn’t a typical gang movie. It was futuristic. … It was an interracial gang, which was really, really interesting,” Harris once said of the movie’s appeal during an interview on the web series ADAMICradio. “It wasn’t a gang that just carried a bunch of guns. In fact, the Warriors didn’t have any guns. We didn’t. We never shot a gun.”
In a film full of eccentrically dressed characters (including a gang member who wore roller skates and overalls, and others who dressed in baseball uniforms with face paint), Harris’ character of Cochise was among the most recognizable, with a feathered headband and an abundance of turquoise hanging from his necklace.
Harris, in his 2019 interview with ADAMICradio, added that he was still recognized as “the guy from ‘The Warriors’” whenever he traveled abroad to promote other projects.
“It feels great to know that you’re a part of some film that’s history,” Harris said.
“There are certain films that are just iconic,” he later added. “And certain actors are blessed enough to get in a film that is just iconic, and people are going to talk about for the next, you know, thousand years.”
