7 Jasons Have Donned the Hockey Mask

NEW YORK —  It’s not exactly a role actors would kill for, but kill they do.

Seven men have portrayed Jason Voorhees, the masked and mutilated corpse who refuses to stay dead in the seven “Friday the 13th” movies.

1. Ari Lehman was 14 when he launched Jason’s blood binge in “Friday the 13th.” In the movie that made sequels a thriving business, he’s only seen in two scenes: a flashback when Jason drowns as a child in Crystal Lake, and at the end of the film when his rotting corpse rises from the lake to grab the lone survivor of his mother’s murder rampage.

Now in his 20s, Lehman has left acting and plays with a funk-rock band.

2. Warrington Gillette, the evil killer in “Part 2,” majored in economics at Villanova University. He studied acting with Lee Strasberg in New York before going to California, where he joined the Hollywood Stunt Man’s Assn. He has worked in comedy workshops, did a movie documentary on Saratoga, N.Y., and has appeared on the TV soap opera “General Hospital.”

3. Richard Brooker, Jason in the 3-D version, is a professional trapeze artist who has appeared in circuses throughout the world.

4. Ted White, a stunt man and actor who played Jason in “Part IV,” had never seen a “Friday the 13th” movie. His credits include “The Creature From the Black Lagoon.”

5. Richard Wieand, who plays a paramedic posing as Jason in “Part V,” does soap operas and commercials. In an interview with People magazine, he talked about his audition: “The director told me to stare at an empty desk and react as if I saw my son lying there hacked to bits.”

6. C.J. Graham, who managed a nightclub, got the part after portraying Jason for a club performance by an illusionist who knew someone in the company that did special effects for the “Friday the 13th” movies.

7. Kane Hodder, a stunt coordinator, stunt man and actor, has performed stunts in more than 25 movies and 40 TV shows. He might be the last Jason, but who knows?