Dan Haggerty, 'Grizzly Adam' Star

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The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams Star Dan Haggerty Dies at 74 - The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty has died.

Haggerty lost his battle to cancer Friday morning at age 74, PEOPLE confirms.

Haggery's rep and friend of 20 years Terry Bomar told PEOPLE Haggerty was diagnosed with cancer in his spine in August after experiencing back pain in July.

"He fought hard," Bomar said. "He had a great Thanksgiving, he had a great Christmas with his family."

Bomar added that Haggerty was visited by his close friends and family in the hospital in his final days.

On the NBC series, the actor played Grizzly Adams, a mountain man who rescues and cares for an abandoned grizzly bear named Ben. The show ran from 1977–78.

Haggerty was an animal trainer before he was an actor.

In 1978, Diane Rooker, Haggerty's wife at the time, told PEOPLE he had "no appetite for Hollywood life."

"We've had the same friends for years," she added.

Haggerty also told PEOPLE about the time "Otis Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, invited me to his house and then took me into his den to see the huge bear he'd shot and had stuffed."

Haggerty continued, "I told him: 'Hell, any jacka-- can point a gun at something and kill it. I got a bear that's bigger than yours, and he rides around in the truck with me.'"