Per TMZ, Spellos died on Sunday morning at Franciscan Hospice House in Indianapolis, Indiana, as confirmed by Jennifer Smith, a friend and acting student. According to Smith, Spellos had been receiving care at the facility as his health deteriorated due to complications from pancreatic cancer, adding, “He was loved and cared for and surrounded by people during his final days.” Spellos’ brother, James Spellos, clarified that the family is planning an online celebraiton of life for the performer following his cremation. He was 69 years old.
Spellos is well-known to Transformers fans for voicing the role of Sky-Byte on the animated series Transformers: Robots in Disguise, and he had enjoyed meeting with many of them at fan conventions. He had voiced the role for nearly 40 episodes, and it’s perhaps it’s Spellos’ best known character. Spellos has also done voices for BattleTech: The Animated Series and Bureau of Alien Detectors. His voice can also be heard in a wide variety of anime shows, which includes roles in titles like Black Jack, Bleach, Cowboy Bebop, Digimon: Digital Monsters, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Naruto, and Trigun. Spellos also had roles in the video games Seven Samurai 20XX and Star Ocean: Second Evolution.
In live-action, Spellos had a notable role as American Bandstand production assistant Gus in the NBC series American Dreams, which ran for three seasons in the early 2000s. He also appeared in the superhero shows The Guyver and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, as wella s the popular TV shows ER, Married… with Children, and NewsRadio. In film, Spellos played Captain Larry Bridgewater in the sci-fi sequel Men in Black II and was featured as a security guard in Jim Carrey’s comedy Yes Man. His other film roles include appearing in titles like Billy Frankenstein, Hard to Die, Dinosaur Island, Agent Red, Sorority House Massacre II, and In the Army Now.
“I’ve been lucky to do a lot of voices, but I really think my favorite is Sky-Byte from Transformers, because it was such a great time doing that series,” Spellos said of his Transformers role in a YouTube interview with Newb: The People’s Nerd in 2015, declaring Sky-Byte to be his favorite character to voice. “And the guys writing and directing it, are good friends, and they’re very kind to me, and they wrote me a lot of great stuff. So, I truly loved doing Sky-Byte.”
Spellos then joked to Newb, “You know what? With my last breath, I will do Sky-Byte for you, so don’t worry.”
Our thoughts go out to Spellos’ family and friends at this time. Rest in peace, Peter Spellos.
