Jon-Erik Hexum
American actor and model (1957-1984)
Jon-Erik Hexum (; November 5, 1957 – October 18, 1984) was an American actor and model, known for his lead roles in the TV series Voyagers! and Cover Up, and his supporting role as Pat Trammell in the biopic The Bear. He died from a self-inflicted blank cartridge gunshot to the head in a game of Russian roulette while on the set of Cover Up.
He was seen as the "next big thing" in Hollywood for his looks, charisma, and ambition. Hexum was a popular sex symbol during his time.
Early life
Jon-Erik Hexum was born on November 5, 1957, in Englewood, New Jersey, to Thorleif Andreas Hexum, a Norwegian immigrant, and Gretha Olivia Paulsen, a Minnesota-born Norwegian-American. He and his elder brother Gunnar were raised in Tenafly by their mother after their parents divorced when Hexum was four. As a single parent after the divorce, Hexum's mother had to work two jobs to support him and his brother. In an interview, Hexum said his mother exposed him to theater arts and music at a young age: "She was wonderful when we were growing up. Somehow she found money to buy us a piano, we got to go to the theater periodically, and I took singing and dancing lessons".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Jon-Erik Hexum” is american actor and model (1957-1984). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jon-Erik, Hexum and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “american actor and model (1957-1984)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1379441. VIAF identifies the subject as 263711466. The Library of Congress control number is no2012119741. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jon-Erik Hexum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.