General Hospital Alum’s On-Screen Son Pays a Touching Tribute to His ‘Dear, Dear Papa’ After His Death
Credit: NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Sometimes actors just touch us in a way we’ll never forget. That’s certainly how we feel about Land of the Lost‘s Spencer Milligan who played dad Rick Marshall in the campy Sid and Marty Kroft classic. Sadly, we just got word this week that he passed away back in April at the age of 86. Land of the Lost wasn’t his only role, of course, and back in the ’80s, Milligan played newspaper editor Ray Gibbons on General Hospital. He was only on for a short stint in what was his last known acting appearance. Gibbons played a minor but crucial role in a 1987 mystery which wound up derailing Anna and Duke’s attempt to tie the knot.
His Land of the Lost son Wesley Eure also shares a daytime connection, having been Days of Our Lives‘ Mike Roark the same time he was in the Sid and Marty Kroft classic as Will Marshall. So it’s no surprise that Eure shared a touching tribute to his “dear friend and Land of the Lost TV dad, Spencer Milligan.”
Eure shared his touching words on Instagram, writing that, “For many of us, and Spencer’s many fans, he was the perfect dad. We loved his kindness, talent and huge sense of humor. We are just processing this news and will post more in the coming days. Our hearts go out to his lovely wife and Spencer’s many friends and family. He was a very private man who lived a wonderful life away from the world of Hollywood. Our loss is great. Rest in peace my dear, dear Papa.”
Read the full tribute below.
Eure and Kathy Coleman, who played his Land of the Lost sister, Holly, came together to make a video tribute to their TV dad, at times being overwhelmed by emotion as they remembered Milligan.
“I’m a little speechless,” Coleman admitted. “He was a father, a true father to us all. And thank God, we got to see him one last time in Milwaukee and spend some really beautiful moments with him. He was a great man. I really truly mean that he was a good man through and through. And he will be missed, but we will forever hold great, fun memories of him. I will refuse to cry. I will just remember all the wonderful things that he meant to me. And I will miss him very much.”
“The last time we saw him,” Eure recalled with a smile, “he talked with his puppets, basically a cow puppet stuff. I can’t I can’t tell you what he said — maybe later! I also have some recordings that I recorded. When Spencer left messages, I kept them, and I’ll post those soon. But you have to understand that Sid and Marty didn’t just cast our TV family, but they cast our real family and he was like a dad. We were all best friends, including Phil Paley, who played Chaka.”
Check out their full video below.
