Stage Actor Paul Kent Dies at 80

According to published reports, stage veteran Paul Kent recently passed away from myeloma. He was 80 years old, and is survived by his wife and three daughters.

While serving as artistic director of the Melrose Theater, Kent also acted in many of its plays, and continued acting in film and television. By the 1970s he had begun a two-decade collaboration with TV-movie director Robert Michael Lewis and producer Harve Bennett, who cast Kent in over a dozen of their productions.

In 1987 Kent played Harry M. Daugherty in a made-for-TV biographical film of J. Edgar Hoover, produced by Showtime. In 1999 Kent became the third actor to play the character of "Doctor Noel Clinton" in Port Charles, a spinoff of General Hospital, succeeding actors Dean Harens and Ron Husmann.

Most recently, Kent had a lead starring role as the character of "Miles Mason" in Viagra Falls, a 2006 television pilot. As of 2011, Kent's latest acting role was his portrayal of Mack Sennett in Return to Babylon, a film completed in 2008 but never commercially released.

His stage credits include: Guys and Dolls, Fiddler on the Roof, The Prince, and more.