Charles Rocket

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Charles Rocket, born Charles Claverie (August 24, 1949–October 7, 2005), was an American film and television actor born in Bangor, Maine, USA. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design in the late 1960s and was part of the Rhode Island underground scene in the following decade. He made several short films and fronted his band, the Fabulous Motels. He later anchored the local news at Channel 12 WPRI. He made his network debut on the popular program Saturday Night Live.

Rocket was cast for the 1980–81 season, which followed the departure of the remaining members of the show's popular original cast and original executive producer Lorne Michaels. Singled out by new executive producer Jean Doumanian as the star of her new ensemble, Rocket was promoted as "kind of a cross between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase." Rocket was given the role of anchor for the show's Weekend Update news parody, and was featured in many sketches.

However, the new cast (save for Joe Piscopo and later Eddie Murphy) was not at all popular with audiences. Rocket was somewhat of a standout, though, with a majority of his sketches and Update bits garnering large laughs, in addition to his infamous "Rocket Reports" segments.

Unfortunately, Rocket would eventually doom both his and Doumanian's tenures on the show with one word. The February 21, 1981 episode hosted by Dallas star Charlene Tilton featured an ongoing joke in which different cast members would vow revenge on him for some reason, in a parody of the famed "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of Dallas. Rocket was then shot in the chest by a sniper in the final sketch. At the end of the show, there was some time to kill, so members of the cast appeared onstage with Tilton, who improvised and asked Rocket how he felt about being shot. A wheelchair-bound Charles audibly mumbled that he'd like to know "who the fuck did it," followed by the cast and audience reacting with shock and embarrassed laughter. The incident seemed to encapsulate all that was wrong with Saturday Night Live at the time, and both Rocket and Doumanian were soon fired (along with most of the writers and fellow cast members). Piscopo and Murphy were the only cast members to survive the ax, and new producer Dick Ebersol replaced most other cast members later.

Rocket recovered from this early career setback and acted in many films, including Earth Girls Are Easy, It's Pat, Dances with Wolves, and Dumb and Dumber, often portraying the antagonist. On the small screen, he managed to secure a series of guest spots on several 1980s sitcoms and also played rival network president "Ned Grossberg" on the 1980s cyberpunk series Max Headroom.

As the 1990s wore on, beneficial roles were few and far between, as Rocket struck out in such box office duds as Titan A.E. and Fathers' Day and in the short lived John Goodman series Normal, Ohio on the Fox network. Nevertheless, he found limited success in guest spots on many popular television programs in the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s, including The King of Queens, Touched By An Angel, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent, the latter of which marked his final appearance on network television. He also lent his voice to popular video game titles "Star Wars: Starfighter", "Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter" (as the character "Nym" in both games), "Descent 3", and "Age of Mythology".

Sadly, Rocket never had the chance to experience A-list status as a celebrity. On October 17, 2005, his body was discovered by police in his yard in Canterbury, Connecticut; his throat had been cut. The Connecticut state medical examiner later ruled his death a suicide. He died at age 56 and is survived by his wife Beth and son Zane.

His last role was in the 2003 movie Shade, starring Sylvester Stallone and Melanie Griffith.

Some fans were disappointed over the 'tribute' on the October 22, 2005 episode of SNL (hosted by Catherine Zeta-Jones). Declining to show even a short clip, the program simply displayed a brief title card on the way to a commercial; the card was not even shown on certain NBC affiliates.