Actor Mitchell Ryan died on Friday. He was 88 years old.
The actor was known for playing a villainous general in the first Lethal Weapon film, a ruthless businessman in the television series Santa Barbara, and had featured roles in the soap opera Dark Shadows and the sitcom Dharma & Greg.
Ryan died of congestive heart failure at his Los Angeles home, his stepdaughter Denise Freed told The Hollywood Reporter.
Robust, with a granite jaw and a sleek mane of hair, Ryan was instantly recognizable on TV and the big screen. His career spanned over half a century, beginning with an uncredited role in Robert Mitcham’s 1958 film Thunder Road.
He was a general-turned-heroin smuggler in Lethal Weapon, a cop in Magnum Force and Electra Glide in Blue, and scheming, bloodthirsty Las Vegas businessman Anthony Tonell in the late-night television soap opera Santa Barbara.
In the 1990s, he had a long-running role as Greg’s rich, eccentric, and drunken father on Dharma & Greg.
Mitchell Ryan, actress Margaret O’Brien, and SAG Foundation Executive Director Marcia Smith pose for a photograph at a Screen Actors Guild event in 2003. Robert Mora.
Ryan played Burke Devlin on the cult 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows for one season, but was fired due to alcoholism.
Ryan acknowledged his drinking problems in his 2021 autobiography Sparrow’s Fall.
“I am happy that after 30 years of drinking, I managed to live the life of a working actor who can be envied. And I lived most of real life while I was in it, ”he wrote. “Sober for the next 30 years, I was told that I came out of it all a good and useful person.”
Ryan has had roles in many TV shows and movies, from Clint Eastwood’s Plainswalker to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
Mitchell Ryan has been open about his alcoholism. Vince Bucci
He has also performed in theatre, including Broadway productions of Wait Until Dark, Medea, and The Price.
“He has been a great gift in my life,” Kathryn Leigh Scott, who starred with him in Dark Shadows, wrote on Facebook. “I keep warm memories of his beautiful soul. I have a broken heart.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.