Actor Peter Fonda, best-known for his iconic role as a free-spirited motorcycle rider in the 1969 counterculture classic Easy Rider, died Friday at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 79. The cause of his death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer, according to a family statement released to People magazine.
Easy Rider, in which Fonda appeared alongside its director Dennis Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson, became a cult classic and earned Fonda an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film, the first counterculture movie to be a huge hit, touched a nerve for America’s youth,
His family said in a statement that he died Friday morning at his Los Angeles home surrounded by family. “In one of the saddest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts.”