It has come to light that Eddie Van Halen nearly appeared in the third film of the popular science-fiction comedy series “Bill & Ted”, which sees the two friends go on a time-traveling adventure.
The legendary Van Halen guitarist’s possible inclusion in 2020’s “Bill & Ted Face The Music” was revealed by actor Alex Winter — who played Bill S. Preston, Esq. in the franchise — during a new appearance on Darren Paltrowitz’s “Paltrocast”.
He said: [via Blabbermouth]”We asked Eddie to be in every single movie and every single movie he said ‘no,'” Winter said. “So when we got to ‘Bill & Ted 3’ — and this is a somewhat bittersweet anecdote — we had a whole sequence which ended up being the Dave Grohl sequence. That’s supposed to be [at Eddie] Van Halen’s house.”
He added: “We went to Eddie, and we were like, ‘Would you please, please be in the third movie?’ He’s, like, ‘You know what, you guys. This one I would have done.’ But he was dying at that point. He was already quite sick. He didn’t tell us that he was literally gonna pass, but he was, like, ‘I’m not well and I can’t do it. But I really appreciate these films. We all love them. And if I wasn’t sick, I would absolutely come down to New Orleans and shoot this with you.’
“So it had kind of a bittersweet end,” Winter added. “It was a running joke in ‘Bill & Ted’ amongst the little family of ours that every single movie we would be like knocking on Eddie’s door, and he’d be, like, ‘no’ and slamming it, so it was not for lack of trying.”
Eddie died in October 2020 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California.
After Eddie was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, he began flying to Germany for treatments. Eventually, the cancer spread to Eddie’s spine and brain. Just a few months later, Eddie died at age 65.
