David Harris, Actor Who Played Cochise in ‘The Warriors,’ Dead at 75
David Harris, the actor who portrayed gang member Cochise in the cult classic film The Warriors, has died at the age of 75.
Harris’ daughter confirmed his death to The New York Times, adding that he died Friday at his New York City home following a battle with cancer.
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In the Walter Hill-directed 1979 film, Harris played the headband-and-necklace-wearing Cochise, an integral member of the red-vested gang the Warriors, who endure a one-night odyssey from the Bronx to their native Coney Island while dodging increasingly colorful gangs hell-bent on violence after the Warriors are wrongly accused of killing a gang warlord.
Panned by critics upon its release, the film would eventually attain cult status, exceeding expectations at the box office and further proliferating upon its home video release.
“We thought it was a little film that would run its little run and go, and nobody would ever talk about it again,” Harris said in a 2019 interview (via the NYT). “I was in Hong Kong, I was in the Philippines, I was in Tokyo. I’ve done a lot of movies, but I get off the plane and people go, ‘It’s the guy from The Warriors.’”
While The Warriors was Harris’ most famous role, the actor also appeared on TV shows like Hill Street Blues, MacGyver, ER, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and a 16-episode run as a police officer on NYPD Blue. His big-screen credits include 1980’s Brubaker, 1986’s Quicksilver, and 2016’s James White.
In 2016, Rolling Stone sat down with a handful of the actors who portrayed the Warriors — including Harris — to revisit the 1979 movie and its legacy for the short film The Warriors: Last Subway Ride Home.
At the time, nearly 40 years after its theatrical release, the movie still attracted legions of fans both old and new. “It means a lot to us, because our fans are family,” Harris told Rolling Stone at the time. “It has not lost its juice in over 30-something years.”
One of those fans, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda — who first saw the movie as a four-year-old via a friend’s older brother’s VHS — recently followed up his Broadway smash in an unexpected way, co-writing a concept album dedicated to The Warriors. That all-star LP — titled Warriors, and revolving around an all-girl gang — was released on Oct. 18, with Kenita Miller playing the role of Cochise.
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