Charles Rocket

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title: "Charles Rocket" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1949-births", "2005-deaths", "20th-century-american-male-actors", "21st-century-american-male-actors", "american-sketch-comedians", "american-male-journalists", "american-male-film-actors", "american-male-television-actors", "american-male-video-game-actors", "american-male-voice-actors", "american-television-journalists", "male-actors-from-maine", "people-from-bangor,-maine", "rhode-island-school-of-design-alumni", "suicides-by-sharp-instrument-in-the-united-states", "suicides-in-connecticut", "actors-and-actresses-who-died-by-suicide", "deaths-from-bleeding", "20th-century-american-comedians", "21st-century-american-comedians", "2005-suicides", "winnacunnet-high-school-alumni", "comedians-from-maine", "american-male-comedians"] description: "American actor and comedian (1949–2005)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rocket" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American actor and comedian (1949–2005) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Charles Rocket
image	RocketCharlesz.jpg
birth_name	Charles Adams Claverie
birth_date
birth_place	Bangor, Maine, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Canterbury, Connecticut, U.S.
other_names	Charlie Hamburger
Charlie Kennedy
alma_mater	Rhode Island School of Design
occupation
years_active	1980–2005
spouse
children	1
::

| name = Charles Rocket | image = RocketCharlesz.jpg | caption = | birth_name = Charles Adams Claverie | birth_date = | birth_place = Bangor, Maine, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Canterbury, Connecticut, U.S. | other_names = Charlie Hamburger Charlie Kennedy | alma_mater = Rhode Island School of Design | occupation = | years_active = 1980–2005 | spouse = | children = 1

Charles Adams Claverie (August 28, 1949 – October 7, 2005), known by stage names Charlie Hamburger, Charlie Kennedy, and Charles Rocket, was an American actor. He was a cast member on Saturday Night Live, played the villain Nicholas Andre in the film Dumb and Dumber, and played Dave Dennison in Disney's Hocus Pocus.

Early life

Rocket was born in Bangor, Maine, the son of Mary Aurelia (née Fogler) and Sumner Abbott "Ham" Claverie. His grandfather was Raymond H. Fogler, who had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He attended Winnacunnet High School and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the late 1960s and was part of the Rhode Island underground culture scene in the 1970s that also included Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and film director Gus Van Sant.

Career

Rocket made several short films and fronted his band, the Fabulous Motels, on accordion (which he later used in an SNL sketch about a crazed criminal who uses an accordion to kill his dates and is killed himself by a bagpipe band).

He was then a news anchor at WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, and KOAA-TV in Pueblo, Colorado, under his own name, and WTVF Nashville under the name Charles Kennedy.

''Saturday Night Live''

Rocket was cast for the 1980–1981 season, which followed the departure of the remaining members of the show's original cast and executive producer Lorne Michaels. Singled out by new executive producer Jean Doumanian, he was promoted as a cross between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. Rocket was tapped to anchor Weekend Update, and was featured in more sketches than any other male cast member that season.

Rocket portrayed recurring character Phil Lively, a game show host who took his larger-than-life persona home and treated life as if it were a game show. His celebrity impersonations on SNL included Ronald Reagan, David Rockefeller, Prince Charles, and Marlin Perkins. He also hosted "The Rocket Report", a series of filmed segments where he posed as a roving reporter around New York; in later years, reviewers considered them one of the few consistently strong parts of Doumanian's shows.

Dismissal

The Saturday Night Live episode of February 21, 1981, hosted by Dallas star Charlene Tilton, featured a parody of the famed "Who shot J.R.?" story arc from the popular nighttime soap. During the show, a plot line had Rocket and Tilton flirting while other cast members expressed jealousy, leading to Rocket being shot in the chest by a sniper in the middle of a sketch. In the show's closing moments, as cast members gathered with the host to say good night, Tilton asked Rocket how he felt about being shot. In character, Rocket replied "Oh man, it's the first time I've ever been shot in my life. I'd like to know who fuckin' did it."

Due partially to the violation of broadcast standards (though FCC rules weren't violated as it was uttered past safe harbor), along with negative press regarding the new cast and declining ratings for both the series and the network in general, NBC replaced Doumanian with Dick Ebersol after one further episode. Ebersol, who placed the show on hiatus for a month to retool, dismissed Rocket, along with several of the writers and fellow cast members Gilbert Gottfried and Ann Risley, before the next episode. A writers' strike led to the suspension of the rest of the season, and when the show returned in October 1981, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy were the only cast members who were held over from Doumanian's era. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live revealed that Rocket was particularly hostile toward Murphy and Piscopo, as he believed the two isolated themselves from the rest of the cast.

Post-''SNL'' career

After SNL, Rocket worked steadily in film, with roles in such films as Hocus Pocus, Earth Girls Are Easy, It's Pat, Steal Big Steal Little, How I Got into College, Dances with Wolves and Dumb and Dumber, often playing comic foils.

On television, in addition to guest spots on several 1980s sitcoms, he played antagonist network president Ned Grossberg on the cyberpunk series Max Headroom, Richard Addison (brother to Bruce Willis's David Addison) on the comedy-drama Moonlighting, and Adam, an angel of death, on Touched by an Angel. He later guest starred in other series including Wings as Danny, a long time friend to Brian Hackett (Steven Weber), 3rd Rock from the Sun as Grant, a physics professor, and The King of Queens as Steve Moscow, a Russian contractor who is hired to remove mold from Doug and Carrie Heffernan's house.

In addition to his acting work, Rocket played accordion on the David Byrne-produced B-52's album *Mesopotamia *on the track "Loveland",{{cite AV media notes | title=Mesopotamia| title-link=Mesopotamia (album)| others=The B-52s| year=1990| publisher=Reprise/WEA| id=B000002LN6}} and the album Amarcord Nino Rota on the track "La Dolce Vita Suite", produced by Saturday Night Live music coordinator Hal Willner.

He also provided the voice of Leo Lionheart Jr. in the "MGM Sing-Alongs" videos in 1996.

Personal life

Rocket married his college girlfriend, Beth Crellin, on board the battleship USS Massachusetts anchored in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1972. Their son, Zane, was born in 1976.

Death

Rocket was found dead in a field on his Connecticut property on October 7, 2005, with his throat slit. He was 56 years old. Ten days later, the state medical examiner ruled the death as suicide. The police investigation determined that there was no criminal aspect to the case.

Filmography

Film

::data[format=table title=""]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	The Outlaws	Stanley Flynn
1985	Fraternity Vacation	'Madman' Mac
1986	Miracles	Michael
1987	Down Twisted	Reno
1988	Earth Girls Are Easy	Ted Gallagher
1989	How I Got into College	Leo Whitman
1989	Honeymoon Academy	DeBains
1990	Dances with Wolves	Lieutenant Elgin
1991	Delirious	Ty Hedison
1993	Brainsmasher... A Love Story	Detective Jones
1993	Hocus Pocus	Dave
1993	Short Cuts	Wally Littleton
1994	It's Pat	Kyle Jacobsen
1994	Wagons East	General Larchmont
1994	Dumb and Dumber	Nicholas Andre
1995	Steal Big Steal Little	Sheriff Otis
1995	Charlie's Ghost Story	Van Leer
1995	Tom and Huck	Judge Thatcher
1997	Murder at 1600	Jeffrey
1997	Fathers' Day	Russ Trainor
1997	The Killing Grounds	Mel Desordo
1998	Dry Martini	Sam
1999	Carlo's Wake	Derek Donovan
2000	Titan A.E.	Firrikash / Slave Trader Guard (voice)	title=Charles Rocket (visual voices guide)
2000	Tex, the Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger	Bart
2002	New Suit	Del Strontium
2002	Bleach	Reverend Jim	Short film
2003	Shade	Tony D
2004	Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light	Narrator (voice)
2008	Fly Me to the Moon	Mission Control 1961 (voice)	Posthumous release
::

Television

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1980–1981	Saturday Night Live	Various characters
1984	Hawaiian Heat	Donald	Episode: "Picture Imperfect"
1985	Steel Collar Man	D5B	Television film
1985	Remington Steele	Peter Gillespie	Episode: "Have I Got a Steele For You"
1985	California Girls	Barry	Television film
1985	Hardcastle and McCormick	Bill Bauer	Episode: "The Yankee Clipper"
1985–1989	Moonlighting	Richard Addison	6 episodes
1986	Miami Vice	Marty Worhington	Episode: "Florence Italy"
1987–1988	Max Headroom	Ned Grossberg	4 episodes
1988–1989	Murphy's Law	Victor Beaudine	5 episodes
1990	Thirtysomething	Ron DeLisle	Episode: "Going Limp"
1990	Doctor Doctor	Charles	Episode: "The Terminator"
1990	Murder, She Wrote	Lieutenant Stuyvesant	Episode: "The Family Jewels"
1990–1992	Quantum Leap	Dirk Riker, Michael Blake	2 episodes
1991	Parker Lewis Can't Lose	Sergeant Jake Melman	Episode: "Randall Without a Cause"
1992	Tequila and Bonetti	Captain Midian Knight	11 episodes
1993	Flying Blind	Dennis Lake	5 episodes
1993	Wild Palms	Stitch	Miniseries, 3 episodes
1994	Wings	Danny	Episode: "Call of the Wild"
1994	Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman	Ryan Wiley	Episode: "Operation Blackout"
1994–2003	Touched by an Angel	Adam	10 episodes
1995–1996	The Home Court	Judge Gil Fitzpatrick	20 episodes
1996	The Adventures of Hyperman	Oil Monster (voice)	Episode: "Oceans a Leavin'"
1996	Picket Fences	Chuck Dante	Episode: "Dante's Inferno"
1996	The Pretender	Carl Bishop	Episode: "To Serve and Protect"
1997	Grace Under Fire	Davis	Episode: "Riverboat Queen"
1997–1998	The New Batman Adventures	Guru, Frederick Fournier, Security Guard (voice)	3 episodes
1998	Jenny	Grant	Episode: "A Girl's Gotta Protect Her Assets"
1998	Cybill	Charlie Addison	2 episodes
1999	Tracey Takes On...	Chopper Tim	Episode: "Road Rage"
1999	Superman: The Animated Series	Used Car Salesman (voice)	Episode: "Superman's Pal"
1999	Star Trek: Voyager	Jippeq	Episode: "The Disease"
1999	The X-Files	Grant Ellis	Episode: "Three of a Kind"
1999	Batman Beyond	Don Grasso (voice)	Episode: "Hooked Up"
2000	Normal, Ohio	Danny	7 episodes
2001	3rd Rock from the Sun	Gary Hennings	Episode: "A Dick Replacement"
2001	The Zeta Project	Edwards (voice)	Episode: "Change of Heart"
2002	Greg the Bunny	Don Dinkins	Episode: "Father and Son Reunion"
2003	Static Shock	Crewcut (voice)	Episode: "Shebang"
2003	The King of Queens	Steve	Episode: "Steve Moscow"
2004	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Donny DePalma	Episode: "Pas de Deux"
::

Video games

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Star Wars: Starfighter	Nym
2002	Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter	Nym
2002	Age of Mythology	Ajax
::

Music videos

• 1989 "Yer So Bad" by Tom Petty
• 1991 "King of the Hill" by Roger McGuinn with Tom Petty
• 1997 "Good Year" by The Refreshments

Notes

Bibliography

• Hill, Doug and Weingrad, Jeff (1986). Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. New York, Beech Tree Books/William Morrow. .

References

1. Morse, Susan. (February 1, 2011). "Charlie (Claverie) Rocket was a local boy, WHS grad". [[Seacoast Media Group.
2. "Mary Aurelia Fogler".
3. (Summer 2012). "The Long Weekend Update". Portland Monthly Magazine.
4. (October 14, 2005). "RIP, Charles Rocket Remembering a giant of the Providence underground". [[The Phoenix (newspaper).
5. (December 15, 2011). "Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live". Untreed Books.
6. "Charles Rocket: Filmography". [[Internet Movie Database]].
7. (September 5, 1981). "Amarcord Nino Rota". [[Discogs]].
8. "Results for 'se:"MGM sing-alongs"' [WorldCat.org]".
9. Rein, Richard K.. (March 23, 1981). "Charlie Rocket Blasts Off Amid the Turmoil of the 'Saturday Night Live' Massacres". [[People (magazine).
10. Starr, Michael. (October 20, 2005). "Charles Rocket, 56, TV and Movie Actor, Dies". [[The New York Times]].
11. Starr, Michael. (October 18, 2005). "R.I.P Charles Rocket - Tragic End For ''SNL'' Comic 25 Years After F-Bomb". [[New York Post]].
12. (October 18, 2005). "Charles Rocket's death ruled a suicide". [[North County Times]].
13. "Charles Rocket (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors.

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