Fred Ward, a versatile actor with a forceful onscreen presence who in a long career played roles that ranged from the sexually adventurous novelist Henry Miller to the meticulous, taciturn astronaut Gus Grissom, died on May 8.

Ward came by his virile persona authentically — or as authentically as stereotypes of some of the jobs he held might suggest.

While he never came close to matching the stardom of macho leading men like Bruce Willis or Dwayne Johnson — he usually had supporting roles — he played tough, resilient characters in films like “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins” (1985), in which he was a James Bond-like assassin skilled in martial arts on assignment for a secret government agency; “Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swann” (1982), in which he portrayed a daredevil motorcycle racer; “Tremors” (1990), in which he and Kevin Bacon battled crawling wormlike monsters; and the comedy “Naked Gun 33 ⅓” (1994), in which he was cast as a terrorist plotting to blow up the Academy Awards show.

But his more subtle talents as an actor were on vivid display in “Henry and June” (1990), a steamy account of the Parisian love triangle that Miller had with his wife, June (Uma Thurman), and the diarist Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) in the 1930s.

“Because women were the instigators as much as men in this film, that may have been threatening to some people,” he told The Washington Post in 1990.

Ward said.

Reviewing “Henry and June” in The Times, the critic Janet Maslin was not kind to the film — but said of Mr.

As Miller, he wrote, “Ward gives a hilarious rendition of burly American bravado, but he keeps the character’s vulgarities in balance with his artistic drives.” It was, he said, “a star performance with a character actor’s authenticity.”.

Ward told The Tribune.

Ward enrolled in the Air Force, because, he said, it was his duty to his country.

Returning to the United States, he took an uncredited part as a cowboy in the 1975 film “Hearts of the West.” But he did not land his first significant role until 1979, when he played a convict who joins Clint Eastwood in an attempt to break out of prison in “Escape From Alcatraz.” Other roles followed, including Mike Nichols’s “Silkwood” (1983), in which he played a union activist and Meryl Streep’s colleague.

Ward in “Henry and June.”.

His survivors include Marie-France Ward, his wife of 27 years, and a son, Django, named after the guitarist Django Reinhardt

Ward once said, tried to “experiment with life over and over again.”