Veteran character actor Kevin McCarthy passed away this weekend in Massachusetts at the age of 96. McCarthy is best known for his roles in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, UHF, and in a lighter, less legitimate turn, as Biff in the stage and film versions of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Of course, individuals of my generation and dumb-movie-loving ilk will forever remember him as the sinister Channel 8 magnate R.J. Fletcher, the man who totally chewed out Michael Richards a good 15 years before the rest of the world did. So long, R.J. — your cartoony bastard laugh is gone but not forgotten (in the wall posts of my dorky peers this week).
