Actor Charles Grodin dead at 86

WILTON, Conn. — Veteran star of stage and screen Charles Grodin died Tuesday of bone marrow cancer at the age of 86 at his Wilton, Connecticut, home.

Actor Nick Grodin, the elder Grodin’s son, confirmed his father’s passing to The New York Times.

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Charles Grodin’s career spanned more than six decades and included memorable roles in such popular movies as “Midnight Run,” “Beethoven” and “The Heartbreak Kid,” as well Broadway’s “Same Time, Next Year.”

According to the Times, Grodin also had his own talk show in the 1990s and became a popular fixture on the broader talk show circuit, appearing 36 times on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and 17 times on “Late Night With David Letterman.”

Grodin was also an Emmy Award-winning writer, sharing a 1977 statuette with six others for a 1977 Paul Simon television special, who penned numerous plays and books throughout his professional career. His published works include 1989′s “It Would Be So Nice If You Weren’t Here,” 1992′s “How I Get Through Life,” 1993′s “Freddie the Fly” and 2009′s “How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Pittsburgh native, who dropped out of the University of Miami to pursue acting, received his first big break in 1962, when he landed a part in Broadway’s “Tchin-Tchin,” starring Anthony Quinn and Margaret Leighton.

Other career highlights included quirky, often awkward, roles in Neil Simon’s “Seems Like Old Times;” Albert Brooks’ mockumentary of a typical American family, “Real Life;” “Heaven Can Wait,” opposite Warren Beatty; “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Great Muppet Caper,” THR reported.

Grodin was born April 21, 1935, and studied acting on scholarship at the Pittsburgh Playhouse School of Theatre, before studying with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg in New York, the outlet reported.