The Only Major Actors Still Alive From The Original Texas Chainsaw Massacre Movie

Every scene in “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” could be described as “disturbing” or “repellant,” but another notable standout among the horror was the scene wherein Sally (the late Marilyn Burns) was invited to dinner by the hooting cannibal family. The family wheels out the mummified corpse of their grandfather in a wheelchair and sits him at the table. Sally is horrified. The cannibals haul Sally over to the mummy and cut her fingertip with a blade, putting the bleeding wound in the mummy’s mouth. To everyone’s shock, Grandfather is still alive, and begins instinctually sucking the blood out of Sally’s finger.

That was actor John Dugan, only 21 at the time, wearing a full-head old man mask. Like several of his co-stars, Dugan also took a break from acting after “Texas Chainsaw,” staying out of the business for 20 years. He was game enough to appear as a cop, sans mask, in the 1995 sequel “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation,” one of the worst movies ever made. By 2000, the acting bug bit him again, and Dugan began appearing in horror movies once more. He also appeared in “Butcher Boys” with Teri McMinn and briefly reprised his role as Grandfather in the 2013 film “Texas Chainsaw 3D,” ultimately tearing through more than a dozen B-pictures from 2013 to 2017.

Dugan held a record for many years as the actor who reprised the same role with the largest number of years in between performances; there were 39 years between “Chain Saw” and “Texas Chainsaw 3D.” That record was broken in 2018, however, when Nick Castle played Michael Myers in “Halloween,” made 40 years after the original.