Culture 4 min read By Lauren Baxter
GWAR Founding Member Chuck Varga, Who Played the Sexecutioner, Dies at 68
Chuck Varga, a founding member of the shock-rock band GWAR and the performer behind the Sexecutioner character, died Friday after a battle with cancer. He was 68.
Chuck Varga, a founding member of the shock-rock band GWAR and the artist who portrayed the leather-clad executioner known as the Sexecutioner, died Friday after a battle with cancer. He was 68.
His death was announced by longtime GWAR bassist Casey Orr, who performs as Beefcake the Mighty. In a statement, Orr said Varga «passed peacefully, his beloved wife Bambi holding his hand.» He described Varga as «one of a kind» — an artist, a performer, a scholar and a gentleman — and added that the world is «lesser for his leaving.» Orr imagined late GWAR members Dave Brockie and Cory Smoot welcoming Varga into «Valhalla,» closing with: «Raise your glass and tell his tales. Legends never die. Hail Varga! Hail Sexecutioner!»
Varga was instrumental in building the visual universe that became inseparable from GWAR’s music. After studying at Virginia Commonwealth University in the early 1980s, he co-founded Slave Pit Studios in Richmond, Virginia, where artists and musicians developed the elaborate costumes, props and films surrounding the group. Though he was not one of GWAR’s original instrumentalists, the band has described him as a founding member because of his role in creating the wider collective.
He developed and performed the Sexecutioner, an exaggerated executioner character who became a recurring figure in GWAR’s notoriously theatrical live shows. Varga portrayed the character from 1985 until 2022, though he stopped being a full-time member of the touring operation in 1997 when he began working on Broadway productions in New York. He also contributed vocals to the band, taking lead on the track «Sexecutioner» and later singing lead on «RagNaRok,» the title track from GWAR’s 1995 album. He co-authored two GWAR feature films, including the Grammy-nominated «Phallus In Wonderland.»
In June, GWAR launched a fundraiser for Varga as he underwent cancer treatment and hospice care. The initiative was intended to help cover his treatment and support Bambi after she stepped away from work to care for him full-time. At the time, fellow Slave Pit member Bob Gorman said Varga’s «illustrations, character designs, performances, and artistic vision» could still be felt throughout GWAR. «Chuck’s over-the-top underground art aesthetic helped define an entire universe,» Gorman added.
GWAR formed in Richmond in 1984 and became renowned for shows combining heavy metal with grotesque science-fiction characters, satire, fake blood and elaborate theatrical violence. The band has weathered the deaths of other key members: guitarist Cory Smoot, who portrayed Flattus Maximus, died in 2011, and frontman and founding member Dave Brockie, best known as Oderus Urungus, died at 50 in 2014.
Varga’s death marks another loss for the extended GWAR family and for the underground art community that shaped the band’s singular identity. His work helped turn a local Richmond collective into a lasting cultural phenomenon, and his performances as the Sexecutioner remain a defining part of GWAR’s legacy.
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