Prolific American actor James Karen – best known for his role in Poltergeist – has died at the age of 94.
He died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, his wife Alba Francesca told the Hollywood Reporter.
His movies included The China Syndrome, The Return Of The Living Dead and Wall Street, while on TV he appeared in the last ever episode of Little House on the Prairie, in which he played an entrepreneur who bought up all the land in Walnut Grove.
Karen was also in Dallas, M*A*S*H, and Quincy ME, in which he played four different characters between 1977 and 1983.
Other TV shows he work on included Beverley Hills 90210, Seinfeld, Magnum PI, Moonlighting, Cheers, Dynasty, Knots Landing and The Rockford Files.
Karen was born Jacob Karnofsky in Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania, where he appeared in its Little Theatre after being encouraged to take up acting by congressman Daniel J Flood who was an amateur performer himself.
Speaking in 2013, he said that acting was “terrific for me”.
He added: “It gave me a real reason to exist, and to live. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.”
Karen attended the Neighbourhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York, making his Broadway debut in 1947 in A Streetcar Named Desire, in which he understudied Karl Malden and worked alongside Marlon Brando.
He was married twice – first to the late folk singer Susan Reed from 1958 until 1967. Silent film star Buster Keaton was godfather to their son Reed.
He married Ms Alba in 1986.
Karen was often cast as authority figures. In Poltergeist (1982), he played property developer Mr Teague who built on top of a former cemetery, causing the spirits beneath to revolt.
He was TV reporter Jane Fonda’s boss in The China Syndrome, and managed a medical warehouse (sited next to a cemetery) in The Return Of The Living Dead.
