Fred Rexer


Fred L. Rexer, Jr. is a U.S. Army Vietnam combat veteran and Hollywood actor and screenwriter. He is best known as the military advisor for Apocalypse Now and as Spiritual Advisor for Conan the Barbarian. In the opening scenes of Red Dawn, he played the paratroop commander, and later the knife-wielding Russian tank commander gunned down at the service station. Fred Rexer has contributed numerous passages to the screenplay of that film and other films written or directed by John Milius and Walter Hill. Milius has named Rexer as the real-life prototype of Captain Willard, the protagonist of Apocalypse Now.
Fred Rexer was a federally licensed machine gun dealer, holding a class III license from the ATF, selling items listed under the National Firearms Act of 1934, from his Texas business, and he engaged
in that business through at least through the 1970s.

Publications