Trebor passed away on March 11 at Los Angeles Medical Center due to sepsis, his wife Deirdre Hennings confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
He had been battling leukemia since 2012 and underwent a stem-cell transplant the following year.
“Mr. Trebor’s talent, humor, energy and enthusiasm will be greatly missed by all who knew him, most especially by his wife,” the star’s obituary states, per PEOPLE.
Born Robert Alan Schenkman in Philadelphia on June 7, 1953, he adopted his stage name – his first name spelled backwards – while in college to avoid confusion with classmate and playwright Robert Schenkkan.
The late actor was a creative force early on, writing and directing short films, composing music, and contributing reviews to Scholastic magazine before graduating from Northwestern University in 1975.
He moved to New York to pursue acting, performing in Shel Silverstein plays and making his film debut in 1980’s Gorp.
Though his incredible résumé spans decades, Trebor is best remembered for playing Salmoneus across 20 episodes of Hercules from 1995 to 1999, with four additional appearances in Xena: Warrior Princess.
He was originally hired for just two episodes, but his character became a fan-favorite and eventually earned his own action figure – though Trebor joked it was “less muscular than Sorbo’s,” as cited by The Sun.
“The arc for Salmoneus is to try to be a good person, but his essential mercantile instincts kept interfering with that,” he said in 2001. “I never saw him as a thief. Autolycus [played by Bruce Campbell] was the thief. I never saw him as a con man either, although I could understand why other people could.”
“He was just a very enthusiastic guy who didn’t read the fine print and needed to make a living when he wasn’t a farmer or fighter. He lived by his glib tongue,” he added.
In 1997, Trebor even directed an episode of Hercules and remained a beloved presence on the fan convention circuit for years.
One of Trebor’s earliest career highlights came in 1985 when he portrayed notorious serial killer David Berkowitz – aka the Son of Sam – in the CBS TV movie Out of the Darkness, starring Martin Sheen.
He described the role as “emotionally and physically draining,” made even tougher by performing in a comedy play at night. “Occasional 18-hour workdays” became his reality.
His film credits also included The Purple Rose of Cairo, 52 Pickup, Talk Radio, and the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar, in which he played a movie producer in his final screen role.
Later in life, Trebor was named an artist-in-residence at The Braid (formerly the Jewish Women’s Theatre) and, in 2023, performed in Stories From the Violins of Hope, a UN-backed Zoom production about Holocaust-era violins.
He also turned to writing, publishing Dear Salmoneus: The World’s First Guide to Love and Money in 1999 and the political satire The Haircut Who Would Be King in 2019, featuring characters like “Donald Rump” and “Vladimir Poutine.”
“Salmoneus just kind of schmoozed people over and was always trying to scheme and get somebody to do something by showing them the glitter without talking about the substance of the rather shoddy product he was selling,” Trebor said in an interview. “And I think there’s some application to the guy in the White House as far as that’s concerned.”
He continued: “I believe in many ways, Trump is the intersection of psychopath and salesman. And by having portrayed that as an actor, apparently fairly successfully, I thought about that while I was writing.”
Trebor and his wife met while taking a business class at the New School in New York. They moved to Los Angeles in 1990 and married in 2012, shortly after his leukemia diagnosis.
In his memory, donations can be made to The Braid—where a scholarship fund is being set up in his name—or to the Leukemia Research Foundation.
Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this time.
