Stuart Margolin, Emmy-Profitable Actor on ‘The Rockford Information,’ Dies at 82 – Hollywood Reporter

Stuart Margolin, the character actor and James Garner buddy greatest recognized for portraying the smarmy but candy con man Evelyn “Angel” Martin on The Rockford Information, has died. He was 82.

Margolin died Monday, his stepson, actor Max Martini (The Unit), reported on Instagram. One other stepson, director Christopher Martini, informed The Hollywood Reporter that Margolin died of pure causes in Staunton, Virginia.

Margolin additionally introduced his manic, manipulative persona to the Blake Edwards movies S.O.B. (1981), as a star’s (Julie Andrews) insidious private assistant, and A Fantastic Mess (1986), as a bumbling criminal within the filmmaker’s homage to slapstick.

Margolin appeared reverse Charles Bronson in The Stone Killer (1973) and Dying Want (1974) — each directed by Michael Winner — taking part in a contractor who arranges mob hits within the former and the man who offers Bronson’s revenge-seeking Paul Kersey the present of a revolver within the latter.

Margolin additionally proved to be a prolific TV director, helming episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Present, Marvel Girl, Touched by an Angel, The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Northern Publicity, Quantum Leap and, to be anticipated, The Rockford Information.

In 1970, when Garner was about to star as a sheriff of a small Arizona city on NBC’s Nichols — his first community sequence since Maverick — he wanted a “sidekick who was a shifty-eyed, backstabbing rat, but additionally lovable” to play his scruffy deputy, he wrote in his 2011 memoir, The Garner Information.

“We’d made display checks however couldn’t discover what we have been in search of till someday I noticed a clip from Love, American Model. It wasn’t a scene that ought to have gotten amusing, however the actor was so good, he broke me up. I knew he was the one for the half.” (Margolin was taking part in a drunk who hit his head on the bars of his jail cell.)

Recalled Margolin in a 2017 interview: “I used to be being wanted as a younger character actor and comic till I had a option to be on The Mary Tyler Moore Present or on Nichols with Jim Garner. I selected to work with Jim Garner as a result of I assumed I’d have extra enjoyable, which I by no means regretted.”

“It was a fantastic sequence with nice writers and the favourite present Jim ever did. It closed down after a 12 months, after which I used to be approached by Jim’s govt producer and Stephen J. Cannell to be a part of [NBC’s] The Rockford Information. So my profession bought just a little larger, I gained a few Emmys, and I’ve had an actual regular profession through the years with plenty of elements.”

Certainly, Margolin acquired Emmys in 1979 and 1980 as greatest supporting actor in a drama sequence for his portrayal of Angel, a former San Quentin cellmate of Garner’s P.I. Jim Rockford who always finds himself in a jam. The Rockford Information ran for six seasons, spawned a number of telefilms and was an enormous hit in reruns.

“I confess I’ve by no means understood why Rockford likes Angel a lot, as a result of he’s rotten to the core,” Garner wrote in his guide. “However there’s one thing lovable about him. I don’t know what it’s, but it surely’s all Stuart’s doing.”

Born on Jan. 31, 1940, in Davenport, Iowa, and raised in Dallas, Margolin attended a boarding college in Nashville and a personal college in Dallas after he bought booted out of a number of public colleges.

He moved to New York to reside along with his older brother, Arnold, who was showing on Broadway as a substitute actor within the authentic manufacturing of The Diary of Anne Frank, then attended summer time theater camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the place he met Barney Brown, a person who mentored Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall.

After graduating from Scottsdale (Arizona) Excessive College in 1958, he adopted Brown, now an appearing trainer and director on the Pasadena Playhouse, to Southern California. He spent two years learning there, adopted by one other one again in New York.

Margolin made his onscreen debut in 1961 on an episode of CBS’ The Gertrude Berg Present, recurred as a Navy man on NBC’s Ensign O’Toole, starring Dean Jones, and saved busy with appearances on exhibits like Burke’s Regulation, The Fugitive, 12 O’Clock Excessive, Occasional Spouse and The Monkees.

On Love, American Model, he was a part of an ensemble of actors, together with Phyllis Davis, James Hampton and Barbara Minkus, who appeared each week in a number of blackout sketches that linked the scripted segments collectively. (His brother govt produced the anthology present, co-wrote the theme tune and was a TV author.)

Margolin’s first important film position got here within the battle movie/caper flick Kelly’s Heroes (1970), the place he performed Pvt. “Little Joe.” (Telly Savalas was Grasp Sergeant “Large Joe.”)

He then confirmed up in The Gambler (1974) with James Caan, within the Westworld sequel Futureworld (1976), as a mill foreman in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) and on a pair episodes of M*A*S*H.

When Garner returned to play Bret Maverick in 1981 for a brand new NBC sequence, Margolin got here with him, taking part in a crooked character named Philo Sandeen who claimed to be an Indian scout and known as himself Standing Bear.

Margolin additionally directed a number of telefilms starring Garner, together with 1982’s The Lengthy Summer time of George Adams and 1984’s The Glitter Dome, and composed the rating for these two as nicely. (Margolin had written a number of tunes recorded by Arizona rocker Jerry Riopelle, and he carried out his personal songs on a rustic rock album, And the Angel Sings, launched in 1980.)

Extra not too long ago, Margolin appeared on 30 Rock and The X-Information and with Richard Gere in Arbitrage (2012), and he wrote What the Evening Can Do (2017), stepping in to additionally star when the unique main man, Martin Sheen, suffered an harm. His stepson Christopher directed.

Along with his brother and stepsons, survivors embody his third spouse, Pat, and her daughter, costume designer Michelle Martini.

Duane Byrge contributed to this report.