Character Actor

Alice Playten, 63, a versatile character actor and musical-comedy voice whose piping wail earned her comparisons to a baby Ethel Merman, died Saturday in New York. The cause was heart failure after a lifelong battle with juvenile diabetes, complicated by pancreatic cancer, said her husband, Joshua White. Ms. Playten was a two-time Obie winner, for the satirical revue National Lampoon's Lemmings and First Lady Suite , the Michael John LaChiusa chamber musical, in which she played Mamie Eisenhower.

Bill McKinney, 80, a character actor whose most recognizable performance was as a menacing hillbilly in the 1972 film Deliverance, died Dec. 1 of esophageal cancer at a hospital near his home in Van Nuys, Calif. An adaptation of a James Dickey novel, Deliverance tells the harrowing story of a canoe trip by a group of suburbanites in the backwoods of Georgia. Mr. McKinney's character, identified in the script only as "Mountain Man," and a companion capture two of the canoers, played by Jon Voight and Ned Beatty, at gunpoint.

G.D. Spradlin, 90, a former lawyer and oil producer who found a second act as a prolific character actor, playing authority figures in such films as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather: Part II , died Sunday at his San Luis Obispo ranch in central California. Born in Pauls Valley, Okla., Gervase Duan Spradlin turned to acting in his 40's after serving in the Army Air Forces in China during World War II, working as an attorney for Phillips Petroleum Co. and striking it rich as an independent oil producer.

David Kelly, 82, an Irish character actor who played Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and motorcycled naked in Waking Ned Devine , died Sunday in Dublin. Mr. Kelly was best known in Ireland for his 1980 depiction of doomed tenement dweller Rashers Tierney in the historical miniseries Strumpet City and for his large body of work as a Dublin stage actor in the 1950s and 1960s. British and Irish TV viewers also could recognize his face and bony frame from short, usually comedic turns on myriad soaps and sitcoms, most memorably as a work-dodging Irish builder opposite John Cleese in a 1975 episode of Fawlty Towers . He also played a dim-witted, one-armed dishwasher in the late-1970s British sitcom Robin's Nest . A longtime colleague, Gate Theatre director Michael Colgan, noted Mr. Kelly's old-school charms, punctuated by his propensity for bow ties and smart suits.

William H. Preston, 77, whose love of Shakespearean plays led him to a late-blooming career as a character actor, died of cancer Friday at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York. Until he was 50 years old, Mr. Preston was a bookkeeper for a trucking firm in Philadelphia. Then, the state condemned his small house on Mole Street for the Vine Street Expressway at about the same time he landed a part in a Broadway play. "I thought, my God, someone's throwing me a ball; all I have to do is catch it," Preston told a reporter later.

In Cyrus , John C. Reilly stars as a socially inept guy named John, long divorced from his wife ( Catherine Keener ), but having trouble letting her and her new husband alone. John has a decent job (he's a film editor), but no life, no girlfriend. And then, at a party, after several bumbling and humiliating exchanges, he meets a woman. Her name is Molly. She is played by Marisa Tomei , and she and John bond while singing along loudly, and dancing badly, to the Human League's '80s hit, "Don't You Want Me. " Suddenly, the future looks brighter.

It was a heartbreaking scene: One woman telling a close friend about the emptiness she felt in her marriage, her pain over her husband's philandering, her wasted potential - and then learning that the woman she was speaking to had had an affair with her husband. The women's faces were full of emotion, their gestures dramatic. But neither woman said a word. Instead, they listened to lines they had previously taped and proceeded to act out the emotions of the characters they were playing in a small acting class at the Ritz Theater in Oaklyn.

The trick, says George Clooney, is not to think of yourself as a movie star. Simple enough for most of us, but not so easy when you're a name-above-the-title kind of guy who's been Batman, got sopping wet in The Perfect Storm, and canoodled on screen with Jennifer Lopez. Clooney sure seems like a marquee idol, all dark and dashing and blithely going gray, as he issues a cheerful, "Hey, I'm George," before getting down to the business of talking up his winning turn in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

To some, he'll always be Lincoln Hayes, the hip, brooding L.A. undercover cop with the big Afro and the memorable expression: "Solid. " But for Clarence Williams 3d, the Linc days are far behind him. And so too the recognition that came from starring in a hit TV series, The Mod Squad (1968-73). Now, Williams - 55 years old and a character actor - has a far more distinguished appearance. He's gray, from his temples to his pinstripes. But some things never change: On a rainy day in New York, Williams peers at the world from behind the shield of dark shades.

William Finley, 71, a character actor who appeared in many films by Brian De Palma, most memorably as the title character in the 1974 rock opera The Phantom of the Paradise , died Saturday in New York. Mr. Finley, who became friendly with De Palma when they were students at Columbia University, had an offbeat style that complemented the director's quirky sensibility. He played alongside a young Robert De Niro in the 1969 De Palma comedy, The Wedding Party , and was Margot Kidder's ex-husband in Sisters , De Palma's first thriller, in 1973.

SEAN BEAN isn't the absent character referred to in the title of ABC's "Missing. " But he's not exactly there, either. As the show opens tonight, Bean's character, CIA agent Paul Winstone, has been gone 10 years, visible only in a flashback that includes the car bombing that left his agent wife, Becca (Ashley Judd), a widow and their son Michael (Nick Eversman) fatherless. That puts the "Lord of the Rings" in company with two other ABC players this season: "Revenge's" James Tupper and "The River's" Bruce Greenwood, both of whom play characters we've mostly seen only in flashbacks or video clips.

David Kelly, 82, an Irish character actor who played Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and motorcycled naked in Waking Ned Devine , died Sunday in Dublin. Mr. Kelly was best known in Ireland for his 1980 depiction of doomed tenement dweller Rashers Tierney in the historical miniseries Strumpet City and for his large body of work as a Dublin stage actor in the 1950s and 1960s. British and Irish TV viewers also could recognize his face and bony frame from short, usually comedic turns on myriad soaps and sitcoms, most memorably as a work-dodging Irish builder opposite John Cleese in a 1975 episode of Fawlty Towers . He also played a dim-witted, one-armed dishwasher in the late-1970s British sitcom Robin's Nest . A longtime colleague, Gate Theatre director Michael Colgan, noted Mr. Kelly's old-school charms, punctuated by his propensity for bow ties and smart suits.

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government news agency and arts council said that character actor Pedro Armendariz Jr. has died in New York City. He was 71. Armendariz's most famous roles are sly, cynical characters endowed with wit and charisma. Armendariz played Gov. Riley in the 2005 movie "The Legend of Zorro," and acted in 1989's "Old Gringo" and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" in 2003. Government news agency Notimex said yesterday that he died of cancer. He acted in more than 100 films, including the Mexican hit "The Crime of Father Amaro.

Bill McKinney, 80, a character actor whose most recognizable performance was as a menacing hillbilly in the 1972 film Deliverance, died Dec. 1 of esophageal cancer at a hospital near his home in Van Nuys, Calif. An adaptation of a James Dickey novel, Deliverance tells the harrowing story of a canoe trip by a group of suburbanites in the backwoods of Georgia. Mr. McKinney's character, identified in the script only as "Mountain Man," and a companion capture two of the canoers, played by Jon Voight and Ned Beatty, at gunpoint.

G.D. Spradlin, 90, a former lawyer and oil producer who found a second act as a prolific character actor, playing authority figures in such films as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather: Part II , died Sunday at his San Luis Obispo ranch in central California. Born in Pauls Valley, Okla., Gervase Duan Spradlin turned to acting in his 40's after serving in the Army Air Forces in China during World War II, working as an attorney for Phillips Petroleum Co. and striking it rich as an independent oil producer.

Roberts Blossom, 87, a durable character actor who was known for playing cantankerous old coots, both comic and sinister, but who may be best remembered as the kindly next-door neighbor in the comedy Home Alone , died Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. Mr. Blossom amassed a long string of theater credits before hitting his stride as a character actor in the movies in the 1970s. He performed in dozens of films, usually in small but memorable roles. He was an ill-fated patient in the George C. Scott film The Hospital , the delirious Wild Bob Cody in Slaughterhouse-Five , Paul Le Mat's ornery father in Citizens Band , the farmer who once saw Bigfoot in Close Encounters of the Third Kind , the convict who paints the warden's portrait in Escape From Alcatraz , and the irate judge who sentences Michael J. Fox to community service in a local hospital in Doc Hollywood . In a rare starring role, he was Ezra Cobb, a crazed farmer who unleashes mayhem, in the cult horror film Deranged . He played against type in the hugely popular Christmas film Home Alone . As Old Man Marley, he was a threatening-looking geezer rumored to have killed his entire family, but the scary Marley turns out to be a sweet old fellow who befriends the character played by Macaulay Culkin.

Alice Playten, 63, a versatile character actor and musical-comedy voice whose piping wail earned her comparisons to a baby Ethel Merman, died Saturday in New York. The cause was heart failure after a lifelong battle with juvenile diabetes, complicated by pancreatic cancer, said her husband, Joshua White. Ms. Playten was a two-time Obie winner, for the satirical revue National Lampoon's Lemmings and First Lady Suite , the Michael John LaChiusa chamber musical, in which she played Mamie Eisenhower.

THE BIG C. 10:30 tonight, Showtime. NEW YORK - For much of last season on Showtime's "The Big C," Oliver Platt played a husband with no clue his wife had been diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. It was hard playing those scenes "in the dark," he said. "You had to really focus and forget that you knew. " But how? "Well, you just do it. It's your job. You pretend. " Platt is pretty good at that. But as this dark though ultimately life-affirming comedy returns for a second season (tonight at 10:30)

ROB McELHENNEY, the only locally born star of FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," is going method - De Niro -as-LaMotta method - for next season. Screen Junkies reports that the usually svelte McElhenney, who plays Mac, gained 50 pounds for the irreverent comedy. Why? Because fat people are funny. "It's been disgusting to watch him go through with this adventure," said Charlie Day , who plays the aptly named Charlie (the show's best character). "We were a little on the fence about it for his own personal health and safety.