Royce D. Applegate

{{Short description|American actor and screenwriter}}

{{More citations needed|date=March 2025}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2021}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Royce D. Applegate

| image = Royce D. Applegate.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption =

| birth_name = Royce Dwayne Applegate

| birth_date = {{birth date|1939|12|25}}

| birth_place = Midwest City, Oklahoma, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2003|1|1|1939|12|25}}

| death_place = Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| resting_place = Woodland Memorial Park Cemetery in Sand Springs, Oklahoma

| othername = {{unbulleted list|Roy Applegate|Royce Applegate}}

| yearsactive = 1969–2003

| occupation = {{flatlist|

• Actor
• screenwriter
• author}}

| spouse = {{marriage|Norma Applegate|1958|1969|end=divorced}}

| website =

}}

Royce Dwayne Applegate (December 25, 1939 – January 1, 2003) was an American actor and screenwriter who was first billed as Roy Applegate.

Born in Midwest City, Oklahoma,{{cite book |last1=Lentz |first1=Harris M. III |title=Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2003: Film, Television, Radio, Theatre, Dance, Music, Cartoons and Pop Culture |date=2008 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5208-8 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sXrGCwAAQBAJ&q=%22Royce+D.+Applegate%22&pg=PA12 |access-date=September 1, 2019 |language=en}} his most visible role was that of Chief Petty Officer Manilow Crocker on the first season of the television series seaQuest DSV.{{cite book|last1=Terrace|first1=Vincent|title=Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010|date=2011|publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers|location=Jefferson, N.C.|isbn=978-0-7864-6477-7|page=938|edition=2nd}}

Applegate portrayed Deputy Crawford in Stir Crazy (1985).{{r|etvs|page1=1021}} In that year, he also appeared in two episodes of Diff'rent Strokes, playing family man-turned-kidnapper Donald Brown, a father who kidnaps character Sam McKinney in order to replace his own dead son.

Applegate was a top-billed ensemble cast member in the 1987 Richard Fleischer-directed, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World- and Midnight Madness-esque screwball comedy film Million Dollar Mystery, playing the dim-witted roadside desert diner proprietor Tugger.

Applegate twice co-starred under the direction of The Coen Brothers, appearing in both O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Intolerable Cruelty (2003), the latter of which was his final screen role, and released posthumously.

He portrayed Confederate General James L. Kemper in two films, Gettysburg (1993) and Gods and Generals (2003).

On New Year's Day 2003, Applegate died in his Hollywood Hills home in a fire just one week after his 63rd birthday.{{cite news |date=January 3, 2003 |title=Actor Royce Applegate found dead |url=https://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-01-03-applegate_x.htm |work=USA Today |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060521003644/https://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-01-03-applegate_x.htm |archive-date=May 21, 2006 |agency=Associated Press}}