Justin Tarr

Justin Tarr was born on April 14, 1940 in Amarillo, Texas, USA as John Howard Kenneth Barnes. He moved to Colorado when he was nine years old. His family worked on a cattle ranch near the town of Black Forest. He attended St. Mary's High School in Colorado Springs, where he excelled at shotput, javelin, discus, boxing, basketball, and weightlifting.

After a year in college, a fling at flying school, and various other occupations, in the 1960s, he decided to become an actor. He sold his hot rod and got a scholarship to finance three years' study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where he moved in 1963. He appeared in The Torch Bearers, Orpheus Descending, On the Town, and The Rainmaker.

Private Tully Pettigrew on The Rat Patrol was his first professional TV role and accounted for the bulk of his work.

Tarr was at the wheel for the accident in January 1967 that caused a broken ankle for Gary Raymond and assorted injuries for Christopher George (including the heart contusion that contributed to George's death in 1983). It happened on a dry lake bed at Rosamond, California, near Edwards Air Force Base. The company was shooting a simple scene in which Tarr drove a jeep around a wrecked German half-track during a battle. George was seated beside Tarr, and Raymond stood on the rear with a mounted 50mm gun. The Jeep's tires broke through the crust of the lake bed.

"The whole thing happened as if in slow motion," recalled George. "I could feel the right side of the jeep lifting, and I began to think we were going to roll over. I had a Thompson submachine gun in my hands and I figured it could hurt me if I didn't got rid of It. So I did. I thought Gary could probably leap clear, since he was on the back. I looked over at Justin and guessed he would get killed, and probably I would, too. The jeep flipped up and over and then started to come down on us. I said to myself, 'This Is it.' But the jeep didn't come all the way down. The gun mount on the back had acted as a roll bar." Tarr escaped with only an injured arm.

At one point in his life, Tarr was a hairdresser in Colorado Springs. His co-players in The Rat Patrol -- George, Raymond, Hans Gudegast, and Larry Casey &mdash; each had their hair cut by Tarr. George said, "Don't get me wrong, Tarr is not bad. but there's a better barber here in Almeria [Spain, where the show was also filmed]. And this guy, I'm sure, has other ideas than to make everyone look like a Texan."

Tarr planned to pull out of the series at the end of the second season, and he was absent from a few episodes that season (the producers went so far as to remove him from the opening credits &mdash; contrast to Hans Gudegast, who was always in the opening credits regardless of whether his character was in the episode or not). A January 1968 report speculated that he would be replaced because the show then appeared likely to be renewed for a third season, but that proved not to be the case.

Tarr's acting career after The Rat Patrol was sporadic. His most notable other appearance came in the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt (1968). Tarr played an informant named Eddy. He shares a scene with McQueen (sporting slicked-back hair, amber-lensed glasses, and a mustache connected to sideburns).

He had a role in a 1977 episode of Hawaii-Five-O (billed as "Tar"). As far back as 1967, the Honolulu Advertiser had described him as a frequent visitor to the islands.

IMDb.com shows his last appearance (again billed as "Tar") in a 1990 episode of Midnight Caller.

From his first marriage, he had a son called Achilles (the name reflected his fascination with the ancient Greeks).

Tarr died in Hawaii on on July 26, 2012. His obituary in the Honolulu Advertiser gave his name as "Jet Tar."