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Actor Mitchell Ryan has died at the age of 88
Photo:
20th Century Fox / Everett Collection / IMAGO
Mitchell Ryan, American television star, died of heart failure at his home in Los Angeles, according to his stepdaughter Denise Freed.
She shared this with the Hollywood Reporter.
Mitchell Ryan was immediately recognizable: his angular, granite-like face and the smooth, later also white mane of hair were his trademarks on television and on the cinema screen.
His career spanned more than half a century.
The role to world fame
Probably the most internationally successful film in which he took part was the first part of the "Lethal Weapon" series from 1987. In it he played a US general who smuggled drugs, and thus the antagonist of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.
In the 1960s, Ryan played Burke Devlin for one season on the soap opera Dark Shadows.
He was subsequently removed from the cast because of his alcohol addiction.
In the 1990s he had a permanent role as Greg's wealthy, eccentric father on the series »Dharma & Greg«.
Ryan managed to fight his severe alcohol addiction
In his 2021 autobiography, Fall of a Sparrow, Ryan acknowledged his drinking problems: "I'm blessed to have managed, after 30 years of drinking, to have an enviable acting life.
And I learned a lot from real life in the process,” he wrote in the foreword.
"I've been sober for 30 years and I'm told I came out of it a good and useful person."
Ryan has had roles in many television series and films, from A Stranger With No Name, starring Clint Eastwood, to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
He also appeared in the theater, including on Broadway.
"He was a great gift in my life," wrote Kathryn Leigh Scott, who starred with him in Dark Shadows, in a Facebook post.
“I cherish my warm memories of his beautiful soul.
I am devastated".
Mitchell Ryan died Friday at the age of 88.
xvc/AP