Actor Cliff Emmich, who starred in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and Little House on the Prairie, has died. He was 85.
A spokesperson for Emmich confirmed that the actor passed away and disclosed that he had long been battling health issues.
“My client and friend for over fifty years lost his battle with lung cancer… He passed at his home in Valley Village on Monday,” in a statement, his spokesperson stated.
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Who was Cliff Emmich?
Cliff Emmich was raised in Los Angeles, California, and was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1936.
He was given the name Clifford after his father, a well-known exotic automobile dealer who catered to celebrities like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Ozzie Nelson.
Emmich next attended classes at the Pasadena Playhouse before touring the nation with the American Repertory Players. He spent the summer giving performances at Jackson Hole, Wyoming’s Pink Garter Theatre.
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Throughout his career, the actor appeared in more than 90 movies and TV shows, making his screen debut in 1969’s Gaily, Gaily.
He was best remembered for playing Chicago in the 1973 movie Payday, which featured Rip Torn’s honky tonk singer Maury Dann riding in the backseat of a Cadillac automobile.
Alongside co-stars Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, Emmich went on to play a Western Union security guard in the 1974 movie Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
In Halloween II in 1981, Emmich kept the security guard job he had previously played.
In a two-part Happy Days episode from 1979 titled Fonzie’s Funeral, he also appeared as The Candy Man, a forger.
Michael Landon created a character, especially for Emmich for Little House on the Prairie’s fifth season. In the episode The Man Inside, he portrayed a middle-aged guy who was bashful and humiliated and whose daughter despised him. One of his favourite roles that he’s played was said to be this one.
The renowned actor also starred in Barracuda, Starsky and Hutch, Murder, She Wrote, and Walker, Texas Ranger, among other movies and television programmes.
