Actor Edward Herrmann, who played temporary replacement surgeon Captain Steven J. Newsome in Season 8’s “Heal Thyself,” passed away today at the age of 71. His career spanned more than four decades and included roles in film, television and on stage. He won both an Emmy Award (in 1999) and a Tony Award (in 1976) and was nominated for an addition four Emmy Awards as well as another Tony Award. Herrmann is perhaps best known recently for his regular role on Gilmore Girls from 2000 to 2007 (on The WB and later The CW) but older viewers may remember him more for his portrayal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a pair of ABC made-for-TV movies in the mid-1970s opposite Jane Alexander.
In “Heal Thyself” Herrmann’s character was a fun-loving surgeon who seemed like a great fit for the 4077th and especially for the Swamp. But he cracked under the pressure of meatball surgery.
Other television roles included stints on St. Elsewhere, The Practice, Oz, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Good Wife.
Obituraries can be found at Variety, Deadline Hollywood, and The Los Angeles Times.
A very memorable guest star. In addition to his acting, he also did voice overs for various show on the History Channel, my favorite being History’s Lost and Found.
He seemed like a very classy gentleman and was very good in all the character roles he embodied. RIP Mr. Herrmann.
Is it bad that I don’t know who this is? 🙁
If I’m not mistaken, I believe he also played Herman in one of the attempts to revive “The Munsters” as a backdoor TV Movie pilot, possibly the one that featured the original actors who played Granpa, Lilly, and Eddie in a cameo role in a restaurant scene. I remember some reporters making fun about Herrmann playing Herman.
I know it’s silly, but I always feel sorry for celebrities who die the last two weeks of the year. It’s too late for them to be included in year end ‘Who Died This Year?’ TV specials, and its generally unlikely they’ll be included in next year’s. They’re doomed to an eternity of ‘Oh wow, I didn’t know he died..when did that happen?’
You are correct about Hermann playing Herman Munster. It was on a Fox tv movie in the 1990s, and it is the same movie where Yvonne DeCarlo, Pat Priest & Butch Patrick all made cameo appearances. There is a clip of this scene in a documentary about The Munsters, made around 2002 and available on You Tube now. I was surprised to see him play Herman Munster after all his previous distinguished work, but it was neat to see him do it. He was certainly the appropriate height to play Herman Munster anyway.
Sitcoms Online did include him in its look back at sitcom actors who passed away in 2014, which you can see here:
http://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2014/12/in-memoriam-remembering-sitcom-stars-we.html
Someone once mentioned years ago, either online or in a magazine, what you did about actors who died in December and ended up being left out of end-of-year tributes as a result. One actor in particular which I remember mentioned there was Peter Lawford, who died in December 1984. I remember the passings of celebrities like Shirley Hemphill & Curtis Mayfield, who died in December 1999, and former Nixon Cabinet member, Elliot Richardson, who was the only person that I recall dying on December 31, 1999, which put him as close as anyone to missing the 2000s, if not the 21st Century.
On my previous post I failed to mention that Al Lewis also made a cameo appearance. He and the other 3 Munsters regulars sat on all 4 sides of a table, and they were all hidden behind menus at first, so you could not see their faces immediately. I think that I specifically watched this movie because some show like ET previewed the movie and showed clips of that scene, so I had to see how all 4 of them looked after so many years.