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January 19, 2003
LOS ANGELES -- Richard Crenna, the Emmy award-winning character actor who starred as a lovesick teenager on Our Miss Brooks and Sylvester Stallone's Green Beret mentor in the Rambo films, has died. He was 76.
Mr. Crenna, whose credits also include Wait Until Dark, The Flamingo Kid, and television's The Real McCoys, died Friday of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, daughter Seana Crenna said Saturday.
"This came very sudden," she said.
Mr. Crenna's role on the CBS drama series Judging Amy was recently put on hold as he battled cancer.
"He was one of the brightest, nicest, funniest and most talented actors I've ever worked with," Sylvester Stallone said Saturday. "He was everyone's friend."
Mr. Crenna often played tough guys on screen, but at home he rarely lost his sense of humor, his family said.
"Even after 46 years, he had me laughing, even in the hospital," his wife, Penni Crenna, said Saturday.
Mr. Crenna moved easily between television and the movies, and worked steadily through the years. He appeared in several critically hailed movies, including roles as the cuckolded husband in the steamy 1981 film Body Heat, and as the conniving card shark opposite Matt Dillon in 1984's The Flamingo Kid.
He earned an Emmy for his 1985 performance as the title character in The Rape of Richard Beck, where he played a macho, sexist police officer whose world changes after he becomes the victim of a sexual assault.
Most recently, Mr. Crenna appeared as the love interest opposite Tyne Daly on CBS' Judging Amy. An episode featuring a wedding between the two characters was recently postponed because of Mr. Crenna's illness.
Mr. Crenna is survived by his wife and three adult children. Family members were arranging a public service to be held Saturday.