Sam Amico
Charles Dierkop, a longtime character actor who made a name for himself in classics such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, has died. He was 87.
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Dierkop also had regular roles on television shows such as Police Woman. On that show, he played the role of Detective Pete Royster from 1974-78.
Along with all that, Dierkop appeared briefly in the Man on the Moon music video from REM.
He after suffering a recent heart attack and from pneumonia, his daughter, Lynn, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Dierkop grew up in Wisconsin and dropped out of high school after his junior year, enlisting in the Marines. He then served in the Korean War.
He returned home to live with his mother in Philadelphia and used a G.I. Bill to enroll in the American Foundation of Dramatic Arts.
When he was an infant, his father left the family and his mom moved away, and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. He frequently got into fights and “got my nose busted four times,” he said, the first time while in Holy Trinity grade school.
Frequently portraying heavies, he also appeared three times on Gunsmoke and on such other shows as Lost in Space, Adam-12, Mannix, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Lancer, Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, Kojak, Fantasy Island, Simon & Simon, MacGyver and ER.
His big-screen résumé also included The Sweet Ride (1968), Robert Downey Sr.’s Pound (1970), Angels Hard as They Come (1971), Night of the Cobra Woman (1972), The Hot Box (1972), Messiah of Evil (1973), Messenger of Death (1988) and The Midnighters (2016).
And if you watch closely, you’ll see him sitting at the bar in the 1992 music video for R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon.”
