Wilford Brimley Passed Away!

Wilford Brimley, the famed actor and diabetes awareness activist passed away.

Wilford Brimley passed away at the age of 85 from complications of diabetes. Due to an illness from a kidney infection and his diabetes it led to him dying from it after two months of battle.

Perhaps best known for his advocacy for diabetes research, the actor and singer is iconic for the movies The China Syndrome, John Carpenter's The Thing and The Natural.

Now I am a huge fan of The Thing. Trust me, to this day, that 1982 movie still has conspiracy theories to how Blair (played by Wilford Brimley) got infected by the monster. He ended up being the one of the final Things. We still are debating whether Childs (played by Keith David) was infected by Blair. I believe he was but many think he and McCready (played by Kurt Russell) were human at the closing.

The Blair Thing was one of the coolest creatures in the movie. Graphic and gory. Shame that Universal Pictures had to cut the budget. It would have given us a good battle between McCready and the Thing and explain to why Nauls (played by T.K. Carter) got infected at the last minute. The last person infected before Blair emerged was Garry (played by Donald Moffat).

A memorable scene from The Thing where station commander Garry is caught off guard by Blair who became The Thing.

Born Anthony Wilford Brimley, he was an American actor, singer and advocate. He served in the Marines after dropping out of high school. He left the Marines to take on various odd jobs. He would ended up being casted an extra for Western films, and in little more than a decade he established himself as a character actor for numerous films.

He has been the long-time face for television advertisements for Quaker Oats. He also had promoted diabetes education and appeared in related commercials for Liberty Mutual.

He was born in 1934 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The son of a real estate broker and homemaker, Brimley was a bodyguard for the businessman Howard Hughes during his odd jobs. He was a ranch hand, wrangler and blacksmith. He knows how to shoe horses and learned the trade of acting from his friend Robert Duvall.

He would be a breakout character in the drama The Waltons as Horace Brimley. He would soon take on roles on television and in movies.

He is known for roles in movies like Cocoon, The Road Home and even the Jennifer Anniston comedy-drama Did You Hear About the Morgans?

The Blair Thing. Brimley played the final monster in the movie. The Blair Thing took the lives of Garry and Nauls to become a hideous creature.

Brimley was "a fine singer with a warm, rich voice." He sang with the Cal State Northridge Jazz Band for a concert benefiting the college's Jazz Endowment Scholarship Fund. He had released a jazz standards album called This Time, The Dream's On Me.

He was also a very gifted harmonica player. He performed the harmonica on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Wilford Brimley was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. He was married to Lynne Bagley and had four sons. Lynne passed away in 2000. He remarried. He was married to Beverly Berry and had homes in St. Georges, Utah and Greybull, Wyoming.

He supported John McCain, Mitt Romney and Donald J. Trump during their presidential runs.