‘Grease’ actor Jeff Conaway died Friday at age 60, RadarOnline.com reports and The Hollywood Reporter confirms. The news comes just a day after reports that the star would be taken off life support.
Radar calls it “the end a long, sad road of addiction that made him one of Hollywood’s cautionary tales.” Conaway, known for his roles as Bobby Wheeler on ‘Taxi’ and T-Bird Kenickie in ‘Grease,’ was a New York native whose brutal battles with substance abuse came to define the latter decades of his fame.
Conaway was checked into an LA hospital on May 11. As of May 26, he was reported to have been experiencing no brain activity. A source told Radar that Conaway’s feeding tube had been removed as of Thursday afternoon and that “Jeff is in no pain whatsoever.”
Conaway shot to stardom in 1978 with his starring role in ‘Grease’ and quickly followed up with a three-year run on hit TV series ‘Taxi.’ Roles dried up in the 1980s as his addictions worsened, but Conaway later found steady work on the sci-fi hit ‘Babylon 5.’
Conaway, who had no children, was married twice — once to Olivia Newton-John’s sister Rona from 1980 to 1985, and again to Kerri Young in 1990 (the time and circumstance of his second divorce remain unclear).