Olkewicz died at his Reseda, California, home after a long illness on April 6, 2021, at age 72. His son, Zac Olkewicz, is a screenwriter. During the time of his illness, he crafted a series of YouTube videos reaching out to all of his friends from his years of work, hoping that someone he knew would help him. The video messages were posted as being meant for
Steven Spielberg,
Danny DeVito,
Dolly Parton,
Tommy Lee Jones, and
John Goodman, among many others. He spoke of his illness and struggling to get back into work, the pain that he was in, and his substantial number of knee surgeries (19 at that point as he states), as well as his resulting insurance-related financial losses. In his message to John Larroquette, he said he'd been out of work approximately 12 years because he was too sick to go on, with the exception of two episodes of the 2017 revival of
Twin Peaks. His final video was posted as "Message to Sam Elliott." ==Filmography==