RIP Jack Charles

 The Guardian

By Kelly Burke

September 12, 2022

 

Uncle Jack Charles, Indigenous actor and activist, dies aged 79

Artists across Australia have paid tribute to Charles, who died following a stroke, as a ‘true Australian legend’

Indigenous actor, musician, artist and activist Uncle Jack Charles has died at the age of 79.

His publicist confirmed on Tuesday morning Charles had suffered a stroke and died at Royal Melbourne hospital.

The beloved Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung and Yorta Yorta elder was farewelled by family with a smoking ceremony at the hospital.

“We are so proud of everything he has achieved in his remarkable life – elder, actor, musician, potter, activist, mentor, a household name and voice loved by all – as is demonstrated by his numerous awards including this year’s NAIDOC Male Elder of the Year,” the statement said.

“He will live on in our hearts and memories and through his numerous screen and stage roles.”

On Twitter, rapper Briggs paid tribute: “You’d never have met a more warm, funny & friendly soul,” he wrote. “Uncle Jack & Uncle Arch [Archie Roach] gonna be in good company wherever they’re at.”

The actor David Wenham described him as a “great actor, great social activist, great human being”. The singer and actor David Campbell called him a “true Australian legend”.

Magda Szubanski wrote that she was devastated to hear the news. “He was just the absolute best and this is such a loss. RIP my darling.” Author Anita Heiss wrote: “The beauty of your spirit and the gift of your storytelling will live on forever.”

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, also paid tribute on Twitter: “What a life. What a storyteller. Unforgettable wit and energy and generosity and courage.”

Born in 1943, Charles was a stolen generations survivor. Speaking to the Guardian Australia podcast Full Story, he said of his birth: “I was supposed to be taken from my mother’s breast directly by the Aboriginal protection mob, placed into a baby city mission … But it didn’t happen. [My mother] managed to sneak me out [of hospital].”

Four months later he was retrieved by the state and taken to a city mission, where he lived until he was two years old. He was then moved to a boys’ home, where he suffered child sexual abuse.

In April this year, Charles was the first witness to tell his story in Victoria’s Indigenous truth-telling commission. He was the only First Nations child at the home, and grew up believing he was an orphan. “I wasn’t even told I was Aboriginal – I had to discover that for myself,” he told the commission.

At the age of 17 he heard word that his mother was alive and living in Swan Hill. When he passed the news on to his foster mother, he was removed from foster care and placed in juvenile detention. “I do remember crying myself to sleep,” he recalled.

Charles endured multiple incarcerations for burglary and drug offences in his younger years, and struggled at times with heroin addiction and coming to terms with his sexuality.

In a 2014 interview with Guardian Australia, he said he had steered clear of a prison cell for more than decade. “When I came out of jail this last time I came out a self-proclaimed ‘lore’ man. I knew I had knowledge to share,” he said.

In 1971, with Bob Maza, Charles co-founded Australia’s first Indigenous theatre group, Nindethana, at Melbourne’s Pram Factory.

“Once the industry realised that there were Aboriginals playing Aboriginals they had to stop blacking white people to play Aboriginals,” he said in a recent video for NITV. “It was a big wake-up call for the arts industry.”

The following year he was passed over for the role of Indigenous detective Boney in the Australian television series of the same name. The part went to New Zealand actor James Laurenson, who wore black face makeup for the role.

Charles forged a name for himself over five decades, in films such as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bedevil, Blackfellas, Tom White and Pan.

More recently, Charles appeared in the horror drama series Wolf Creek and in the ABC television drama series Cleverman and in the ABC comedy Preppers.

In 2015, he was named Victorian Senior Australian of the Year; that night, he was denied a ride home from Docklands unless he paid the taxi driver upfront.

Two years earlier, he had been turned away by a Sydney taxi driver Charles had called to take him to his performance at Belvoir Theatre.

In 2019, Charles called on the Victorian government to establish regional Indigenous community centres to tackle increased incarceration of young Indigenous men. “We need to stop the tides of young ones going into our lock-ups and prisons,” he said. “When they get there, there are three police officers assigned to a prisoner, which makes it overbearing – it’s hard to reach out to anybody when they have such anger towards the system and the officers.”

In 2014, Charles became the first Indigenous recipient of a Green Room award for lifetime achievement. In 2019 he was recognised by the Australia Council with a Red Ochre award also for lifetime achievement.

His memoir – Jack Charles: Born-Again Blakfella – was published in 2020, co-written with Namila Benson.

In July, he was named male elder of the year during Naidoc week.

On Tuesday the minister for Indigenous affairs, Linda Burney, sent a media statement offering her condolences.

“Uncle Jack Charles was a ground-breaking storyteller and activist who brought people in with his warmth and grace, never shying away from his past and who he was,” she said. “[He] offered a window for many Australians to see the enduring pain of survivors of the stolen generations and inspired people with his strength of character and resilience.”

First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria Co-chair Marcus Stewart said Uncle Jack left a powerful and strong legacy overcoming trauma, loss and pain with humour, grace and resilience. “Uncle Jack lived an amazing life,” the Nira illim bulluk man of the Taungurung nation said. “They couldn’t keep him down, he persisted against all the odds overcoming every challenge thrown his way.”

The Guardian has received permission to use his name and image.

CHARLES, Jack

Born: 9/5/1943, Cummeragunja, Australia

Died: 9/13/2022, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

 

Jack Charles’ western – actor:

True History of the Kelly Gang – 2019 (waiter)

RIP Bo Brundin

 

Bo Brundin, Swedish Actor in ‘The Great Waldo Pepper,’ Dies at 85

 

Variety

By EJ Panaligan

September 10, 2022

Bo Brundin, a Swedish actor who was best known for starring as a German war pilot opposite Robert Redford in “The Great Waldo Pepper” in 1975, died on Sept. 4 in his hometown of Uppsala, Sweden, Variety has confirmed. He was 85.

In “The Great Waldo Pepper,” Burdin played Ernst Kessler, a famous German pilot who is hired by film producers as a flying consultant. Toward the end of the film as Redford’s Waldo Pepper and Brundin’s Kessler are filming a wartime duel, the two begin actually dogfighting with sincerity and Kessler surrenders as the two salute each other and fly their separate ways. Brundin previously recalled the danger of filming those scenes because a stuntman had just crashed an hour before and suffered injuries to his forehead.

Elsewhere in his career, Burdin appeared in films such as “Around the World With Fanny Hill,” “Shoot the Sun Down” and “Raise the Titanic.” One of his earliest career roles came in an early stage production of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal,” though his role was ultimately taken up by Max von Sydow in the 1957 feature film based on the play.

Burdin was born on April 25, 1937, and pursued an acting career after being cast in Bergman’s stage production of “The Seventh Seal.” He moved to New York to chase his entertainment dreams and crossed paths with iconic figures like Robert Duvall and Dustin Hoffman along the way. He returned to Sweden in 2013 to live out his later years, and often spent time mentoring young actors. Although he was Swedish, he often played characters in films of German, Dutch or Russian descent.

BRUNDIN, Bo (Bo Rosenquist)

Born: 4/25/1937, Uppsala, län, Sweden

Died: 9/4/2022, Uppsala, Sweden

 

Bo Brundin’s westerns – actor, voice:

Shoot the Sun Down – 1978 (Captain)

Centennial (TV) – 1979 (Magnes Volkema)

The Wild West (TV) – 1993 [voice]

RIP Marsha Hunt

 

Marsha Hunt, Actress Blacklisted in Hollywood, Dies at 104

She was a star at Paramount and MGM before making a trip to Washington to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Maureen Lee Lenker

September 9, 2022

 

Marsha Hunt, the bright-eyed starlet who stood out in such films as These Glamour Girls, Pride and Prejudice and Raw Deal before her career came unraveled by the communist witch hunt that hit Hollywood, has died. She was 104.

She died Wednesday of natural causes at her Sherman Oaks home, where she had lived since 1946, Roger C. Memos — writer-director of the documentary Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity — told The Hollywood Reporter.

Hunt also appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the best picture Oscar nominee The Human Comedy (1943) during a period in which she was known as “Hollywood’s Youngest Character Actress.”

A former model who signed with Paramount Pictures at age 17, the Chicago native made her first big splash as a suicidal co-ed opposite Lana Turner in MGM’s These Glamour Girls (1939).

Playing Walter Brennan’s sweetheart in Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President (1939), Hunt aged from age 16 to 65 onscreen. She portrayed the dowdy sister Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940), and in Anthony Mann’s film noir classic Raw Deal (1948), she was the good girl opposite Claire Trevor and Dennis O’Keefe.

Years later, in Johnny Got His Gun (1971) — penned by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo — Hunt played the mother of Timothy Bottoms’ quadruple-amputee character.

Though she never achieved the stardom of some of her co-stars, Hunt was proud of her career, especially early on. “Before I was 30, I had played four aging roles, and I was Hollywood’s youngest character actress … no two roles alike,” she told the website Ms. in the Biz in 2015.

In 1947, Hunt and her second husband, screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., joined the Committee for the First Amendment, which questioned the legality of the House Un-American Activities Committee that was seeking to flush communists out of the entertainment industry.

The committee, which also included Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, John Huston and other Hollywood liberals, chartered a plane to Washington to sit in on the HUAC hearings and support 19 creatives who had been under scrutiny.

However, Bogart and others quickly backpedaled, saying they were duped by communists and their trip to Washington was ill-advised. While that helped save their careers, Hunt did not repent. In June 1950, she was listed in Red Channels, the right-wing pamphlet that fingered scores of actors, directors, screenwriters and others for being sympathetic to “subversive” causes.

“You know, I was never interested in communism,” she said in a 2004 interview. “I was very much interested in my industry, my country and my government. But I was shocked at the behavior of my government and its mistreatment of my industry. And so I spoke out and protested like everyone else on that flight. But then I was told, once I was blacklisted, you see, I was an articulate liberal, and that was bad. I was told that in fact it wasn’t really about communism — that was the thing that frightened everybody — it was about control and about power.

“The way you get control is to get everyone to agree with whatever is proper at the time, whatever is accepted. Don’t question anything, don’t speak out, don’t have your own ideas, don’t be articulate about it, don’t ever be eloquent, and if you ever be one of those things, you’re controversial. And that’s just as bad, maybe worse, than being a communist. Which was still quite legal to be, you know: the Communist Party was still legal in America, running candidates for public office. But you lost your career, your good name, your savings, probably your marriage, your friends, if you had been a communist. It was appalling, just appalling.”

Her story was told in Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity, released in 2015.

She was born Marcia Virginia Hunt in Chicago on Oct. 17, 1917. Her father, Earl, was an insurance executive and her mother, Minabel, a vocal coach. She and her family moved to New York City, and she graduated from the Horace Mann School for Girls at age 16.

Hunt fell into a career as a model when her high school yearbook photographer used her image as an advertising sample. She was signed by the Powers Agency, becoming a sought-after “Powers Girl” and learning how to pose and behave in front of a lens.

Friends with photographers-turned-publicists Robert and Sarah Mack, Hunt moved to Hollywood at 17, signed with Paramount when her agent, Zeppo Marx, got her $250 a week and landed the female lead in her first movie, The Virginia Judge (1935). She appeared as an ingenue and love interest in several films — John Wayne romanced her in Born to the West (1937) — but the studio declined to renew her contract in 1938.

She landed at MGM in The Hardys Ride High (1939) and went on to appear for the studio in The Trial of Mary Dugan (1941) as a Brooklyn chorus girl; in Kid Glove Killer (1942), director Fred Zinnemann’s first U.S. feature; in the World War II drama Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943); and as the top-billed title character in the Jules Dassin romantic comedy A Letter for Evie (1946).

An exhibitors poll had placed her among the “Top 10 Stars of Tomorrow” — others on the list included Roddy McDowall, Gloria DeHaven, Sidney Greenstreet, June Allyson and Barry Fitzgerald — and when she wasn’t acting, she was serving as a hostess at the famed Hollywood Canteen for American servicemen.

In 1948, Hunt made her stage debut in the Hollywood-set Joy to the World, directed by Jules Dassin; two years later, she was back on Broadway in George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple and graced the cover of Life magazine.

After Devil’s Disciple closed, Hunt departed for Europe, but when she returned, Red Channels had been published, and her career — she had made more than 50 films by then — would never be the same.

She went on to guest-star on such shows as The Ford Television Theatre, Climax! and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, was a regular on the short-lived 1959 series Peck’s Bad Girl and later appeared on Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Ben Casey, My Three Sons, Ironside, Murder, She Wrote and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

HUNT, Marsha (Marsha Virginia Hunt)

Born: 10/17/1917, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 9/6/2022, Sherman Oaks, California, U.S.A.

 

Marsha Hunt’s westerns – actress:

The Arizona Raiders – 1936 (Harriett Lindsay)

Desert Gold – 1936 (Judy Belding)

Born to the West – 1937 (Judy Wolstall)

Thunder Trail – 1937 (Amy Morgan)

The O’Henry Playhouse (TV) - 1957

Zane Grey Theater (TV) – 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960 (Claire Andrews, Julie Reynolds, Dr. Sarah

     Martin, Catha Duncan)

Laramie (TV) – 1959 (Martha Chambers)

The Plunderers – 1960 (Kate Miller)

Frontier Justice (TV) – 1961 (Claire Andrews)

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1964 (Sarah)

RIP Wayne Grace

 

Los Angeles Times

September 3, 2022

 

Wayne Grace, stage and screen actor, passed away from complications of bladder cancer at his home in Venice Beach, CA on Saturday, August 13, 2022. He was 82. He grew up in a working class family in Pomona, where he attended high school. He earned an AA degree from Mount San Antonio College, where his fellow classmate was Sam Shephard. He then studied acting at Wayne State University and San Francisco State College before training with the renowned Sandy Meisner in New York. He was in several Off-Broadway shows. He was a member of the Circus Theatre and the Theatre of Marvels in San Francisco before moving to Los Angeles, pursuing an acting career that included roles in such films as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Dances With Wolves, Mulholland Drive, and Far and Away. TV episodes included Seinfeld, The Lazarus Man, Frasier, and several Star Trek TV series plus a variety of voice-over roles. He was also known locally for his theatrical work at the Odyssey Theatre and Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, amongst others. He had a large personality that lit up a room when he entered.

He was preceded in death by his mother and father, as well as his brother Buck. He is survived by his brother Paul Grace, his daughter Danielle Nelson and daughter-in-law Stephanie Nelson. A man of deep religious spirit, he fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the Faith. He will be missed by all that knew him. "The rest is silence …. "

GRACE, Wayne (Robert Wayne Grace)

Born: 5/7/1940, Venice, California, U.S.A.

Died: 8/13/2022, Venice, California, U.S.A.

 

Wayne Grace’s westerns – actor:

McCabe & Mrs. Miller – 1971 (bartender)

Wild and Wooly (TV) – 1978 (O’Rourke)

Little House on the Prairie (TV) – 1980 (guard)

Father Murphy (TV) – 1982 (pallbearer)

Dances With Wolves – 1990 (major)

Far and Away – 1992 (Burke)

The Lazarus Man – 1996 (Major Gaffney, Ulysses S. Grant)

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV) – 1993 (Marcus Jennings)

RIP Amanda Mackey

 

DEADLINE

By Erik Pedersen

August 31, 2022

 

Amanda Mackey Dies: Casting Director On ‘The Fugitive’, ‘A League Of Their Own’ & Dozens Of Other Films & TV Shows Was 70

Amanda Mackey, the casting director behind such films as Best Picture Oscar nominee The Fugitive and A League of Their Own and who earned an Emmy nom for The Normal Heart during a nearly four-decade career, has died. She was 70.

Her longtime friend and business partner Cathy Sandrich Gelfond told Deadline that Mackey died August 27 in her sleep of myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of blood cancer, at Calvary Hospital in Brooklyn.

“Amanda was a singular force — fiercely intelligent, impeccably stylish, wildly passionate about ideas, the state of the world and her work,” Sandrich Gelfond told Deadline. “She loved her daughters profoundly and was an unwaveringly steadfast friend and champion in a time when women weren’t as supportive to other women as they are now. She believed in me, lifted me up and gave me a career. She was the sister I never had and changed my life in countless ways. The world’s light is significantly dimmer without her in it.”

The Casting Society honored Mackey with Artios Awards for the films A League of Their Own (1993) and Smokin’ Aces (2006) among 15 career nominations. Her long list of credits as casting director also includes such popular films as Bad Moms and its sequel, Olympus Has Fallen, United 93, We Were Soldiers, Get Carter, Ronin, The Hunt for Red October, Sleepy Hollow, The Proposal, The Cooler While You Were Sleeping, Patriot Games, The Fugitive sequel U.S. Marshals, Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Rocky IV.

“We are heartbroken to hear about the passing of Casting Director Amanda Mackey,” the Casting Society said in a statement. “She was an inspiration to many in our field, and everyone at CSA sends our condolences to her family and friends.”

Mackey cast and also executive produced A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which won the Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Cast in a Drama at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

She also cast such TV series including A Million Little Things, Claws, Hell on Wheels, Magic City, Hell on Wheels, Low Winter Sun and Memphis Beat and was featured in the 2012 documentary Casting By.

Mackey cast five films for director Andy Davis, from The Fugitive to Holes. “Amanda was a total professional — committed to her craft, spending time in the large and small theaters of New York finding up-and-coming talent ahead of anyone,” he told Deadline. “Amanda knew who the pros were, known and unknown. For a director, casting is everything. Amanda and Cathy gave you choices which inspired new ways of looking at characters and ways of telling your story. Her body of work in film and television was huge.”

Among the up-and-comers she cast in Davis’ films were the team of marshals surrounding Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive including Julianne Moore, Sela Ward and L. Scott Caldwell; Chain Reaction‘s Rachel Weisz and Brian Cox; A Perfect Murder‘s David Suchet and Sarita Choudhry; and Holes‘ Shia LaBeouf, Tim Blake Nelson and Dulé Hill.

Born on September 22, 1951, in New York City and raised there, Mackey was fascinated with acting, theater and film from a young age. Her love of foreign film led her to spend a semester at the Sorbonne, where she discovered a love of character-driven stories that favored brave, unconventional performances.

She started in showbiz as an agent at J. Michael Bloom but quickly was drawn away to pursue a career in casting with the legendary Marion Dougherty, a future Casting Society Hoyt Bowers Award recipient for career achievement. Mackey worked in New York for a time and moved to Los Angeles in 1985, where she would stay for 10 years. During that time, she and her Sandrich Gelfond built the Mackey Sandrich Casting Company. Mackey moved back to Manhattan in 1996, and Mackey Sandrich casting became the first independent bicoastal casting company.

“Those who knew her will agree, Amanda Mackey was one of a kind,” her daughters Nicola Mackey Johnson and Emma Sophia Johnson told Deadline. “Our mother was beautiful, powerful and always stood up for what she believed in. She was terrified of public speaking but could level you with her eyes. She was dynamic and so much fun to be around. She made us the women we are today. She taught us to be strong feminists and truth seekers. We will miss her every second of every day for the rest of our lives, but we will carry her wise voice and love in our hearts forever.

 

MACKEY, Amanda

Born: 9/22/1951, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 8/27/2022, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.

 

Amanda Mackey’s westerns – casting director:

Last of the Dogmen – 1995

Dust – 2001

Hell on Wheels (TV) – 2011-2016

Americana - 2022

RIP Miguel Gurza

 

Actor Miguel Gurza dies at 81

 

U.S.A. Today

By John Carol

August 29, 2022

Tragedy in the world of Mexican cinema! Miguel Gurza, iconic actor and animal lover, has died at the age of 81 after a long and renowned career in many films. He participated in dumbbell with his brother Humberto, according to Agencia El Universal.

Miguel Gurza passed away at the age of 81, after a prolific career in the Mexican film industry, participating (in partnership with his brother Humberto) in endless action films as an actor, stunt double and also as a wildlife trainer, but not just any specimen.

According to Agencia El Universal, Gurza trained species that were part of films that today have become national and international classics such as “Laughing on Vacation”, the “Chanoc” saga, as well as “Predator” and “Conan, the barbarian”, respectively.

The career of the Gurza brothers began in the 1960s, at that time they provided different film productions with animals that appeared in adventure and action films, but that was not all, Miguel and Humberto were the ones who trained the species, according to El Universal Agency.

Species ranged from birds, reptiles, chimpanzees to felines. In fact, it was he and his brother Humberto who were in charge of caring for the species, according to what the actor told the Association of Film Journalists of Mexico (PECIME), in an interview granted in the winter of 2021.

“With my brother Humberto I managed to have a zoo with more than a hundred animals and although we had staff who helped us, the main task was always done by us. Sometimes we had to multiply ourselves to fulfill our work commitments and be aware of all the species”, he recounted

It was precisely when Miguel was caring for a tiger that he suffered a hip injury that prevented him from caring for an animal species, no matter how small; “That’s why I don’t have a dog or a cat as pets because I can’t be feeding them, bathing them or taking them for a walk.”

But throughout his career Gurza contributed a lot to the entertainment industry, for example he was the one behind “Chucho Chucho”, a monkey who shared credits with Olga Breeskin in the show “Violin Girl”, where the vedette performed a piece on the string instrument.

But this was not the only area in which he stood out, over more than five decades of career, Miguel also ventured into the international ranks of the seventh art, as he was a double risk in “Two rascals after the lost emerald”, a film starring Michael Douglas, who played Jack T. Colton, a man who saves a novel writer who is about to die in an accident in a Colombian jungle.

There are many and varied stories that Miguel Gurza kept in his memory, because for years he collaborated with the Churubusco Studios, a place that became the meeting point for a plethora of figures from Mexican cinema with whom he lived over the years and he forged an endearing friendship, points out El Universal.

“In the studios we all knew each other. The restaurant was the place where the filming projects materialized and there was work for everyone, regardless of their physical conditions, there was always a role or character for each of us, ”he told PECIME.

But that bond was not limited to being shared among the great stars of Mexican cinema, but rather the people who worked in the surroundings were also part of the history of the studios and of many films where they appeared as extras.

“Now, I look at the Churubusco (…) no longer with the nostalgia with which I used to, because the studios had a special charm that each of the characters that gathered there gave them,” he said just a few days ago, pointing out that he would not withdraw from the cinema.

The news of his death was announced yesterday by his daughter and her “girl of the forest”, Leticia Gurza, on her social networks, with an emotional message in which she indicated that “Tarzan”, as they called him, always cared for and watched for the good of the animals he loved: “Fly higher than your eagles, now, you are free, they are waiting for you”.

GURZA, Miguel (Miguel Gurza Iglesias)

Born: 1941, Mexico

Died: 8/28/2022, Mexico City, Federal District, Mexico

 

Miguel Gurza’s westerns – wrangler, actor:

El Topo – 1970 [wrangler]

Two Mules for Sister Sara – 1970 [wrangler]

La chaca – 1974 [wrangler]

El payo – un hombre contra elm undo! – 1972 [wrangler]

La montaña del diablo – 1975 (Montaño)

Last of the Dogmen – 1995 [wrangler]

RIP Richard Roat

 

DEADLINE

By Erik Pedersen

August 30, 2022

 

Richard Roat Dies: Actor In ‘Seinfeld’, ‘Friends’, ‘Dallas’ & Dozens Of Other Shows Was 89

Richard Roat, a character actor with 130-plus credits spanning nearly a half-century who appeared in many of TV’s biggest shows including Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers, Murphy Brown, Dallas, Hawaii Five-O and Happy Days, has died. He was 89.

Roat died August 5 in Orange County, CA, according to his family. No other details were available.

Born on July 3, 1933, in Hartford, CT, Roat had a couple of bit TV roles before being cast as Dr. Jerry Chandler in the 1962 pilot of NBC soap opera The Doctors. He appeared in more than 170 episodes during the first year of the which, would go on to air for two decades.

He guested on a 1965 episode of The Fugitive and became a busy character actor during the following decade. Roat appeared in memorable 1970s comedies and dramas as Hawaii Five-O, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Columbo, Cannon, Kojak, The Bob Newhart Show, Police Story, Vega$, Fantasy Island, Happy Days, Charlie’s Angeles and Dallas.

Roat also had small roles in the 1970s features Westworld, American Hot Wax and Corvette Summer.

He continued to be an in-demand TV character actor throughout the 1980s and ’90s, appearing on such hits as 7th Heaven, Cybill, The Practice, Ellen, Coach, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Murphy Brown, The Nanny, Melrose Place, Blossom, Grace Under Fire, Living Single, Mad About You, Lois & Clark, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Night Court, Baywatch, Murphy’s Law, Simon & Simon, L.A. Law, Matlock, ALF, St. Elsewhere, Hart to Hart and others.

He also co-starred with Eva Gabor, Robert Hays and a young Jay Leno in the 1978 telefilm Almost Heaven.

Roat is remembered by Seinfeld fans as one of the doctors who found Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine Benes to be a “difficult patient” in the Season 8 episode “The Package” in 1998. He also appeared as a professor colleague who busts Ross (David Schwimmer) for dating a student in a 2000 episode of Friends.

Farther back, he appeared in two episodes of The Golden Girls, including a Season 1 role as a man who dies while having sex with Rose (Betty White). Roat also recurred as Farnsworth on multiple Hill Street Blues episodes from 1982-85 and as a publisher on Dynasty in 1986.

In a 1985 episode of Cheers, Roat played Norm’s (George Wendt) boss Mr. Hecht, who promotes him to corporate killer — responsible for firing people in the office.

About that time, he returned to his soap opera roots to play Professor Henry Moore in about a dozen episodes of NBC’s Days of Our Lives from 1985-91. His final credit was a 2009 episode of 24.

Roat also appeared briefly on Broadway and onstage at The Public Theatre in Central Park, The Huntington Hartford Theatre in Los Angeles and the Pasadena Playhouse. Along with his long acting career, he had a successful practice as an entertainment tax preparer for more than 50 years.

Survivors include his wife of more than 40 year, Kathy.

ROAT, Richard

Born: 7/3/1933, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

Died: 8/15/2022, Orange County, California, U.S.A.

 

Richard Roat’s westerns – actor:

Hec Ramsey – 1972 (Jack Trench)

Westworld – 1973 (technician)