Clarence Gilyard Jr., Die Hard and Walker, Texas Ranger star, dies at 66

Clarence Gilyard Jr., the bombastic actor identified for roles in movies like Die Exhausting and High Gun and TV reveals like Walker, Texas Ranger and Matlock, has died on the age of 66.

Nancy J. Uscher, the dean for the Faculty of Fantastic Arts on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas, the place Gilyard served as a theater and movie professor, introduced his passing on Monday. A reason for demise was not given.

“It’s with profound unhappiness that I share this information,” Uscher stated. “His college students have been deeply impressed by him, as have been all who knew him. He had many extraordinary skills and was extraordinarily well-known within the college by means of his dedication to instructing and his skilled accomplishments. He had a nationwide and worldwide following by means of his celebrated work within the theater, in movie, and tv.”

“His generosity of spirit was boundless — he was at all times able to contribute to tasks and performances nonetheless potential,” she continued. “We bear in mind Clarence with pleasure and gratitude for all he contributed to the Faculty of Fantastic Arts, the UNLV neighborhood, and, by means of his spectacular private achievements, to the world.”

CBS Picture Archvie/Getty Photographs Clarence Gilyard Jr., star of ‘Die Exhausting’ and ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ died at 66.

Heather Addison, the UNLV movie chair, referred to as Gilyard “a beacon of sunshine and power for everybody round him at UNLV.”

“At any time when we requested him how he was, he would cheerfully declare that he was ‘Blessed!’ However we’re actually those who have been blessed to be his colleagues and college students for thus a few years,” she stated. “We love you and can miss you dearly, Professor G!”

Gilyard’s profession spanned stage and display screen over greater than 30 years. He as soon as advised the St. Anthony Messenger {that a} half in a kids’s theater manufacturing primarily based on Aesop’s Fables led him to his first play, Bleacher Bums, a couple of group of Chicago Cubs baseball followers. Due to that manufacturing, he stated he “began taking an appearing class in Hollywood.”

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Among the many roles he is turn out to be most identified for, Gilyard appeared in 20 episodes of the Nineteen Eighties sequence CHIPs as Officer Benjamin Webster and in 85 episodes of the Nineteen Nineties sequence Matlock as Conrad McMasters. The actor performed naval pilot Marcus “Sunset” Williams in 1986’s High Gun; Theo, the obnoxious tech specialist of Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber, in 1988’s Die Exhausting; and New Hope Village Church pastor Bruce Barnes within the Left Behind film trilogy of the early 2000s.

Gilyard acquired his BA in Theatre Arts from California State College, Dominguez Hills. He would later take a sabbatical after Matlock and Walker, Texas Ranger to finish an MFA in Theatre Efficiency at Southern Methodist College.

UNLV theater professor Nate Bynum stated instructing was a “main purpose” for Gilyard. He stated, “Some could discover it stunning to know that Clarence valued his appointment as a college professor as extremely, possibly larger, then his illustrious profession as a TV star.”

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