Jay Pickett, who starred in the soap operas General Hospital and Port Charles, passed on Friday at the age of 60 for unknown reasons. Pickett passed while riding a horse on set in Idaho for the movie Treasure Valley, according to actor and colleague Jim Heffel.
Jay Pickett’s death announcement
“Yesterday I lost a good friend and the world lost a great person. Jay Pickett decided to ride off into the Heavens. Jay died sitting on a horse ready to rope a steer in the movie Treasure Valley in Idaho.” Pickett and Heffel, who co-produced the film with Travis Mills, described it as “The way of a true cowboy”
Mills paid respect to Jay Pickett in a personal statement on the film’s official Facebook page. “Many of you have already heard about the tragedy that happened two days ago. Jay Pickett, our leading man, writer, producer, and creator of this movie passed away suddenly while we were on location preparing to film a scene. There is no official explanation for the cause of his death but it appears to have been a heart attack. Everyone present tried as hard as they could to keep him alive. Our hearts are broken and we grieve for his family who are so devastated by this shocking tragedy.”
Who is Jay Pickett?
Jay Pickett was born in 1961 in Spokane, Washington, and raised in Caldwell, Idaho. By his undergraduate years, he had set his sights on being an actor, earning a BA in acting from Boise State University and an MFA in acting from UCLA, both with a theatrical concentration.
Jay Pickett appeared in a number of notable TV series throughout the years, including China Beach, Dragnet, Mr. Belvedere, Perry Mason, and Days of Our Lives, before landing a role as Frank Scanlon on the ABC serial Port Charles in 1997. Following that, he had a recurring role as Detective David Harper on General Hospital.
