Actor Art Matrano, best remembered for the character of Ernie Mauser in the "Academy for Beginners" film series, died on Wednesday.
Matrano died at his home in Florida at the age of 84, his son Harry told the Miami Herald.
"With a heavy heart I have to tell that I lost my best friend, my teacher and my father," Harry wrote on his Instagram account last weekend, alongside shared photos of him and his father.
"He was and always will be the toughest person I know. I have never met anyone who survived so many hardships."
The late actor's son was referring, among other things, to a fall his father experienced in September 1989, when he fell off a ladder while renovating his Los Angeles home.
As a result of this fall, his father became paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
He later created a one-man comedy show called "Matrano's Accident Comedy."
"It was indestructible."
Matrano, Gettyimages
"This is the important point here - his stubbornness and resilience," his son told Herald.
"He went through so much, beyond breaking his neck. As he got older he needed a number of surgeries on his back and neck and each time he would stand back up, as if he were indestructible. But not all of us are like that and his spirit will continue to live."
Matrano was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1936. He starred in a number of American television series during the late 1960s, appearing in guest appearances on series such as "Kozak," "Starsky and Hatch," and "The Amazing Giant." Among all his many roles, the character of the policeman Mauser stood out, as mentioned, in the second and third films in the "Exercise for Beginners" series, which were released in 1985 and 1986.
