MovieChat Forums > The Strongest Man in the World (1975) Discussion > Joe Flynn (Dean Higgins) dead at 49???

Joe Flynn (Dean Higgins) dead at 49???

posted 15 years ago by Segafan7
4 replies | jump to latest

I was just watching this Disney Classic on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and they said that Joe Flynn died of a heart attack right after filming of the movie was done... I guess right before the movie reached theaters. Really sad... and only 49?? I would have thought that he was much older at the time... Do you think this might have been the reason why this was the "LAST" in the Dexter Riley Medfield College series?? Anybody know why they didn't make more of these?

Oh... Okay... I just read on here that Joe Flynn actually died in his swimming pool. I guess he actually drowned after having the heart attack. It sounded like he might have survived the heart attack if he hadn't been in the pool??

[–] garbage-28 15 years ago

I know I read that too. And he had a cast on his foot so maybe if he had not been near the pool he might have lived but with a heart attack you never know. I agree I would have thought he was at least in his 50's. Maybe the glasses aged him.

[–] geordie-688-809183 9 years ago

Do you think this might have been the reason why this was the "LAST" in the Dexter Riley Medfield College series??

It's hard to imagine a Dexter Riley Medfield College movie without Dean Higgins.

[–] b-rad 8 years ago

But it is indeed true. Dean Higgins was introduced after "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes".

I'll always remember Flynn more as Captain Binghamton from "McHale's Navy". I can't drive up to New York State without thinking, "What, what, what?!"

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

[–] greenbudgie (2355) a year ago

Joe Flynn's early death may have put an end of the Dean Higgins character. But I don't know if they were to be any more Medfield College movies anyway. They were coming out at the rate of one every three years. So by the time a fourth had arrived Kurt Russell and his buddies would have been too old to play college students. They only just got away with that factor in this one.