4 PM PST 3/2/2021
in
Mike Barnes
He worked on several other soap operas and was a familiar face in the Marlboro, Old Spice and Camel cigarette commercials.
Geoffrey Scott, who played professional tennis player Mark Jennings, Linda Evans’ first Krystle Carrington husband, in ABC’s prime time soap opera in the 1980s Dynasty, died. He was 79 years old.
Scott died of Parkinson’s disease on February 23 – just after midnight the day after his birthday – in Broomfield, Colorado, said his wife Cheri Catherine Scott The Hollywood Reporter.
Handsome Scott also played a US marshal fighting aliens in Wyoming in 1880 in the “The Secret Empire” part of the 1979 NBC series Cliffhangers!; starred alongside Jerry Reed in the 1981 CBS series Concrete Cowboys (he took on the role originated by Tom Selleck in a TV movie on which the program was based); and was a quarterback on the 1984-85 HBO sitcom 1st and 10th.
In the daytime soap operas, Scott played Sky Rumson at ABC’s Dark shadows in 1970, Jeffrey Jordan at CBS ‘ Where the heart is in 1972, David McAllister at ABC’s General Hospital in 1989 and Billy Lewis on CBS ‘ Guide light in 1994.
And in commercials – he did almost 100 of them – he played a Marlboro man and also a sailor launching the antiperspirant Old Spice, “walked a mile for a camel” in a cigarette campaign filmed at the Taj Mahal and starred with Margaret Hamilton in some places for the Maxwell House cafe.
Scott joined Dynasty near the start of its third season in 1982 and worked on the legendary show for two years, appearing in 45 episodes. Her character is taken to Denver by conniving Alexis Colby (Joan Collins) after she finds out that Mark and Krystle’s divorce years ago was not legal.
Later, Mark saves Krystle and Alexis from a fire, becomes Alexis’ bodyguard and is pushed from a terrace to his death, with Alexis emerging as the prime suspect.
Scott was born in Los Angeles on February 22, 1942. His father, Reed, worked as an entrepreneur at Lockheed, producing airplanes, and his mother, Jayne, was a homemaker.
He and his brother Don, later a Universal lawyer, were raised in the San Fernando Valley, just down the street from where John Wayne and Clark Gable lived, and he used to jump into Gable’s pool uninvited.
Scott was hired by the legendary agent Dick Clayton, who would also represent names like Jane Fonda, James Dean and Burt Reynolds, and he got a contract at Universal.
Scott also appeared in Sidney Lumet’s The next morning (1986) and in programs like Adam-12, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Kojak, Dallas, Matt Houston, Night Cut, Married to children and Murphy Brown.
His wife said that he and Selleck often competed for roles.
Scott retired after 45 years in show business and moved to Colorado with his family to ski, his lifelong passion. He has lived in the Boulder area for the past 10 years.
In addition to his wife, he leaves his twin sons Christopher and Matthew.