Character actor Tom Bower has died on the age of 86, his rep confirmed to Nearer on Thursday, June 6. “Tom was an insanely nice actor and human being. What a loss,” Marsha McManus of Principal Leisure L.A. stated in an announcement.
He handed away in his sleep at his Los Angeles house on Might 30, sister-in-law Mary Miller instructed The Hollywood Reporter.
Tom was a well-known face in motion pictures and on TV. He performed Dr. Curtis Willard on The Waltons and helped Bruce Willis‘ John McClane foil airport terrorists in Die Onerous 2 as janitor Marvin.
He was most lately seen in Bob Odenkirk‘s AMC sequence Fortunate Hank, taking part in his father Henry Devereaux Sr. in three episodes of the sequence in 2023.
Tom was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Though he aspired to be an expert baseball participant, he caught the performing bug in highschool and headed to New York Metropolis, the place he enrolled on the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1956.
He studied at John Cassavetes Shadows Workshop, touchdown a job within the legendary director’s debut movie, Shadows, in 1957.
Tom would go greater than a decade earlier than with the ability to make a residing as an actor. He moved to Boston and have become a non-public investigator. In response to his sister-in-law, Tom was a founding father of the Boston Repertory Theater and gave performing classes to a younger Al Pacino. The pair starred collectively in David Rabe’s play The Fundamental Coaching of Pavlo Hummel in 1972.
As a personality actor, Tom appeared in quite a few basic 1970’s TV exhibits, together with The Bionic Lady, Kojak, Baretta, The Rockford Recordsdata, Barnaby Jones and Lou Grant. Nevertheless, it was his 27-episode stint on The Waltons between 1975 and 1978 that made him a well-known face to audiences.
Dr. Curt employed Mary Ellen Walton, performed by Judy Norton, to be his nurse after arriving in Walton’s Mountain, changing the previous physician. The 2 fell in love and married, happening to have a son.
Tom’s character was written off as getting killed throughout the assault on Pearl Harbor however was introduced again in a 1981 episode that occurred in Florida with a special actor taking part in the half.
In a 2022 interview with Judy, 66, Tom defined what occurred to trigger him to be let go from The Waltons.
“I requested for a really small elevate, in order that they despatched me to Pearl Harbor,” he joked. “Then, after they determined to deliver the character again, washed up on a shore someplace — which I didn’t suppose was an excellent concept anyway — I requested for a similar small elevate. … They simply solid a special actor.”
Along with Die Onerous 2, Tom appeared in such movies as Two-Minute Warning, River’s Edge, Beverly Hills Cop II, True Believer, Elevating Cain, Clear and Current Hazard, North Nation and The Hills Have Eyes.
