Ed Lauter Dead: Veteran Actor Dies at 74

Ed Lauter was a true artist. The veteran actor died at the age of 74 on Wednesday, Oct. 16, the Los Angeles Times reports. A family spokesman confirmed to the newspaper that Lauter passed away at his home in L.A. after battling mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that develops from cells surrounding internal organs.
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The Long Island, New York native had a long career as a character actor beginning in the early 1970s. He had TV roles in Mannix, The Rockford Files, The A-Team, Walker, Texas Ranger and Miami Vice.
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More recently, Lauter played Dick Healey in the Showtime series Shameless, a friend of Clint Eastwood's character in 2012's Trouble with the Curve and played Peppy's Butler in the 2012 Oscar-winning film The Artist. 
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"A lot of people say, 'I know you,' but they don't know my name," he told The Times in 2012. "But I've had a great run."