Broadway Veteran Richard A. Dysart Passes Away at 86

According to published reports, Broadway veteran Richard Dysart passed away in his home earlier this week, on April 5. He was 86 years old.

In 1979, Dysart was featured in the film Being There, portraying a good-hearted physician. In 1980, he portrayed Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in the television film The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd. He voiced the kindly miner Uncle Pom in the Disney English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 adventure classic, Castle in the Sky, and voiced the character of "Cogliostro" on Todd McFarlane's Spawn: The Animated Series, which aired on HBO.

He also starred in movies such as The Last Days of Patton, The Day of the Locust, The Rumor Mill, Pale Rider, The Falcon and the Snowman, Prophecy,The Thing, Warning Sign, Hard Rain, Mask, An Enemy of the People, The Hospital, The Hindenburg and Back to the Future Part III. Dysart created the role of Coach in the original Broadway production of Jason Miller's Pulitzer Prize winning play, That Championship Season in 1973. He appeared in an episode of the 1976 CBS television series Sara.

Dysart was a founding member of the American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco. He attended Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. He received the Drama Desk Award in 1972 and an Emmy Award in 1992. He was a brother of the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity based out of Emerson College in Boston. In 1990, Dysart was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law.