Ray Walston Dies At Age 86

Award-winning character actor Ray Walston, who played the lovable extraterrestrial Uncle Martin on the 1960s TV sitcom My Favorite Martian and a host of cantankerous coots in later years, has died, his agent said Tuesday. He was 86.

The slim, icy-voiced actor died Monday of apparent natural causes at his home here, said Harry Gold, his agent of 16 years.
His last screen appearance was in September in the season premiere of the CBS hit show Touched By An Angel.

Walston made a career of playing wise and charismatic cranky characters. He won a Tony in 1955 for his performance in Broadway's Damn Yankees and two successive Emmys in 1995-96 for his role as acerbic Judge Henry Bone in the quirky small-town series Picket Fences.

He had feature roles in the London and touring casts of South Pacific as Luther Billis, and then played Billis in the movie version. In 1982, he was featured in the movie Fast Times At Ridgemont High, as well as in many of the teen-coming-of-age movies it inspired.

Born in New Orleans, the actor started his career with a local stock company.

When the family moved to Houston, Walston's father wanted to teach him the oil business, but young Ray instead joined a traveling repertory company, where he sold tickets in addition to acting.

Walston began performing professionally in 1939 with the Margo Jones Community Players at the Houston Civic Theater. His first role was in Maxwell Anderson's High Tor. He had one line: "Hello."

It wasn't until the mid-1940s that Walston's stage career really started taking off, with roles in 22 productions by the famed Cleveland Playhouse.

By 1945, he had moved to New York to appear on Broadway, which brought him the biggest break of his career — George Abbott casting him as the devil in Damn Yankees, the smash musical about a frustrated baseball fan who sells his soul.

Walston's film debut came in the 1957 movie Kiss Them For Me with Cary Grant, and he later played the devil again in the film version of Damn Yankees.

He also appeared in Say One For Me with Bing Crosby and in director Billy Wilder's films The Apartment and Kiss Me, Stupid.

In addition, he had supporting roles in Portrait in Black, Wives and Lovers, Caprice, Paint Your Wagon, The Sting, Silver Streak and Stephen King's The Stand.

Walston was known to younger fans as the irascible Poopdeck Pappy in Robert Altman's live-action film Popeye in 1980.

Filmography:

• My Favorite Martian (1999)
  
• Swing Vote (1999)
  
• The Westing Game (1997)
  
• Tricks (1997)
  
• House Arrest (1996)
  
• Project: Alf (1996)
  
• Of Mice and Men (1992)
  
• The Player (1992)
  
• One Special Victory(1991)
  
• Pink Lightning (1991)
  
• Angel of Death (1990)
  
• Blood Salvage (1990)
  
• Fine Gold (1990)
  
• Popcorn (1990)
  
• A Man of Passion (1989)
  
• Class Cruise (1989)
  
• I Know My First Name Is Steven, Part 1 (1989)
  
• I Know My First Name Is Steven, Part 2 (1989)
  
• Runaway Ralph (1989)
  
• Ski Patrol (1989)
  
• Blood Relations (1988)
  
• Crash Course (1988)
  
• Mouse and the Motorcycle - Special Edition (1988)
  
• Paramedics (1988)
  
• Red River (1988)
  
• Saturday the 14th Strikes Back (1988)
  
• The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1988)
  
• O.C. and Stiggs (1987)
  
• Ask Max (1986)
  
• From the Hip (1986)
  
• Rad (1986)
  
• Amos (1985)
  
• For Love or Money (1984)
  
• Johnny Dangerously (1984)
  
• That's Singing: The Best of Broadway (1984)
  
• The Jerk, Too (1984)
  
• Private School (1983)
  
• This Girl for Hire (1983)
  
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
  
• O'Hara's Wife (1982)
  
• The Kid with the Broken Halo (1982)
  
• Galaxy of Terror (1981)
  
• Popeye (1980)
  
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1980)
  
• Institute for Revenge (1979)
  
• The Girl Who Saved the World (1979)
  
• The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977)
  
• Silver Streak (1976)
  
• The Sting (1973)
  
• Paint Your Wagon (1969)
  
• Caprice (1967)
  
• Kiss Me, Stupid! (1964)
  
• Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
  
• Wives and Lovers (1963)
  
• Convicts Four (1962)
  
• Portrait in Black (1960)
  
• Tall Story (1960)
  
• The Apartment (1960)
  
• Say One for Me (1959)
  
• Damn Yankees (1958)
  
• South Pacific (1958)
  
• Kiss Them for Me (1957)

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