Vale: Joe Lara

US actor Joe Lara, best known for 1990s series Tarzan: The Epic Adventures, has died, aged 58.

According to US reports he died with his wife, author and pastor Gwen Lara, and five others when a Cessna C501 plunged into Percy Priest Lake in Tennessee on Saturday. There were no survivors.

“Our efforts have transitioned from a rescue effort to that of a recovery effort,” Rutherford County Fire Rescue Capt. Joshua Sanders said during a news conference. “We are no longer… looking for live victims at this point.”

Lara began as a model before he landed the lead in the 1989 telefilm Tarzan in Manhattan, which found the King of the Jungle in New York trying to rescue his chimp, Cheetah.

He then starred in the 1996-97 series Tarzan: The Epic Adventures, which he also produced, filmed in South Africa.

Other credits included Sunset Heat, American Cyborg: Steel Warrior, Final Equinox, Doomsdayer, Baywatch, Operation Delta Force and Conan the Adventurer.

Source: Hollywood Reporter, Variety