Damon Killian (died 2025) was played by the late game show host Richard Dawson.
He is the main antagonist in the Stephen King novel The Running Man, the most popular show in the dystopian world of The Running Man. In this show, prisoners, no matter if they are truly criminals or so called enemies of the state, have to fight the stalkers, also known as gladiators, for three hours and, if they survive it, they will receive a pardon for their crimes against the state. It is all an immense fraud of the government to get rid of nuisances to the government not wanting to give them pardon, even if they survive on the way and in order to protect the satellite relays of the government hidden in the arena. Killian plays along, because all he cares about is money, power and an obsession of being the number one on TV, even if innocent people die along the way.
Through manipulaton, fraud and deceit, he manages to bring Ben Richards to the show together with his friends and also brings Amber to the show when he realizes that she knows too much. When the entire fraud is later exposed to the public by the Resistance and Ben Richards once they have the code of the relays, Ben executes Killian publicly by forcing him to play the game, too. The masses express their happiness that he dies and make Ben Richards a national hero for doing that.
After that, his show is closed.
Trivia[]
Richard Dawson wasn't the first choice to play Damon Killian, the role was written for Chuck Woolery who was a perfect fit to be an opponent for Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Woolery had to drop out of the project due to his busy schedule with Love Connection and Scrabble. Burt Reynolds was also considered, but turned it down and Richard Dawson was cast by the request of Schwarzenegger who's a huge fan of Family Feud and also a close friend of Dawson.
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