Some sad news to begin 2015: the character actor Edward Herrmann, perhaps best known for his patriarchal role in seven years of Gilmore Girls, died on New Year's Eve in New York aged 71.
Herrmann was born in Washington, grew up in Michigan, went to university in Pennsylvania and studied acting in London. Starting out in theatre, he made his Broadway debut in 1972 in Michael Weller's Moonchildren, and won a Tony Award for his performance in George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession four years later.
Moving into television he had early roles in Beacon Hill and Valley Forge, and played President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the first time in Eleanor And Franklin in 1976. He would reprise Roosevelt the following year in Eleanor And Franklin: The White House Years; in Annie in 1982; and hosted the documentary FDR: A Presidency Revealed in 2005. He also played unnamed presidents in TV movies Pandora's Clock and Atomic Train.
His long career in cinema began in the early '70s. He played Robert Redford's partner Ezra Stiles in The Great Waldo Pepper, having worked with Redford a year or so previously as the feckless pianist Klipspringer in The Great Gatsby. He would go on to roles in Warren Beatty's Reds; Woody Allen's The Purple Rose Of Cairo; Oliver Stone's Nixon; the Coen brothers' Intolerable Cruelty; and Martin Scorsese's The Aviator and The Wolf Of Wall Street.
He was maybe most recognisable to a particular generation as Cory Haim's sinister potential stepfather in The Lost Boys. He played his sort-of namesake Herman Munster in the TV-movie revival Here Come The Munsters, and Goldie Hawn's money-grabbing husband in Overboard.
More recently his time was much occupied with the pivotal Richard Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, which ran on The CW from 2000 until 2007. But he was also a ubiquitous narrator of historical documentaries, and made regular guest appearances (often as a judge, or a priest, or a senator) on TV juggernauts like Grey's Anatomy, Harry's Law, CSI, The Good Wife and How I Met Your Mother. That busy schedule allowed him to indulge his expensive passion for collecting and restoring classic cars.
Herrmann's most recently released film is the horror remake The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and his final performance in David Stott's Coach Of The Year is currently in post-production.
“Having valiantly braved months of treatment for brain cancer, Edward Herrmann passed peacefully at 8.30am today at Sloan Kettering hospital in New York City,” Herrmann's manager Robyn Stecher said in a statement on Wednesday. The actor is survived by his wife Star Hayner, daughters Ryan and Emma, and stepson Rory.