THE revered Scarface and Ghostbusters actor Harris Yulin, who was also a legend of Broadway, has died at the age of 88.
He passed away in New York on Tuesday, as announced by his family and manager Sue Leibman, after a heart attack.
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Yulin was a celebrated master of Broadway, treading the boards for Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Visit and Watch on the Rhine, among many other productions.
In Scarface, he played the corrupt police officer Mel Bernstein, and he portrayed the judge Stephen Wexler in 1989’s Ghostbusters II.
Born in 1937 in Los Angeles, Yulin made his New York stage debut in 1963 in James Saunders’ Next Time I’ll Sing to You.
It wasn’t until 1980 that he broke onto the Broadway circuit in a revival of Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine, and a slew of others followed.
He had a penchant for playing menace, put to good use in such films as Multiplicity, All Square, Wanderland, Omni Loop, Game 6, and Candy Mountain.
And he also turned his hand to TV with great success – scoring a major role in the Netflix drama series Ozark.
Yulin was Emmy-nominated for his work on sitcom Frasier in 1996.
The actor also directed a number of theatre shows, such as The Glass Menagerie at Guild Hall and Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful.
Yulin was preparing to start this week in a starring role in the Michael Hoffman directed MGM+ series American Classic, alongside Kevin Kline and Laura Linney.
His family said he had been delighted to be working with Hoffman and so many artists he admired.
Hoffman led tributes, and said: “Harris Yulin was very simply one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered.
“His marriage of immense technique with an always fresh sense of discovery, gave his work an immediacy and vitality and purity I’ve experienced nowhere else.
“And what he was as an actor, he was as a man, the grace, the humility, the generosity.
“All of us at American Classic have been blessed by our experience with him.
“He will always remain the beating heart of our show.”
Yulin is survived by his wife Kristen Lowman, son-in-law Ted Mineo, nephew Martin Crane.
His daughter, actress Claire Lucido, passed away in 2022.
A memorial will be held at a later date.
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