Charles C Stevenson Jr, best known for playing Smitty in Will and Grace, died aged 95.
Stevenson died in California on January 19, his son Scott confirmed in a statement.
The actor played the role of Smitty on 12 episodes of the long-running noughties sitcom, with his final appearance in the 11th season, which aired in February 2020.
His first major on-screen acting role was in the 2008 Disney movie Snow Buddies, which he filmed when he was 76.
Stevenson’s son Scott told Variety how his late father viewed his onscreen presence, which included several gigs as a preacher, priest or pastor.
‘In his own words, his job was “marrying or burying people,”‘ Scott told the publication.
He added: ‘As he told it, the panic-stricken director would invariably come to him to beg him to find a way to fill in unscripted space between, “We are gathered here together”(where he’d probably get his close-up) and the “amen” at the end of the scene (where he usually wouldn’t).’
Scott concluded: ‘Stevenson admitted that he got pretty good at that.’
But the acting bug didn’t hit him until he was 50. Before that, he went to UC Berkeley as an English major and also served in the Navy during the Korean War.
He moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, where he initially worked on public service announcements and community events with Hollywood figures including James Stewart, Jack Lemmon and Henry Winkler.
According to iMDb, his first recorded role was as a reporter on an episode of the show Voyagers! in 1982.
He appeared in several TV shows through the 1990s, including Murder She Wrote, Baywatch, Everybody Loves Raymond and Party of Five.
Moving into the noughties, he appeared in popular shows such as The Office, Weeds, My Name Is Earl and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Stevenson also made the jump onto the big screen, in films such as The Naked Gun and Men in Black.
He is survived by two children, Charles III and Valerie, from his first marriage and by three, Catherine, Scott and William, from his second marriage to the late Hollywood agent and manager Joy Stevenson.
He is also survived by eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
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