Los Angeles [US], February 21 : Veteran actor Peter Jason has passed away. He was 80.
Peter is best known for starring in nine features for Walter Hill and seven for John Carpenter. He portrayed the card dealer-turned-reverend Con Stapleton on HBO's Deadwood, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
His death was confirmed by a reprsentative at Vanguard Management.
The Hollywood native amassed more than 275 acting credits on IMDb alone during his seven-decade onscreen career that began in the mid-1960s with a comedy sketch on CBS' The Red Skelton Show, and he made his big-screen debut in Howard Hawks' final film, Rio Lobo (1970), where his character died in the arms of John Wayne.
He also was an actor and production associate for Orson Welles on The Other Side of the Wind, which came out in 2018 after 48 years in development.
After working for Hill in The Driver (1978) and The Long Riders (1980), the fun-loving Jason stood out as a redneck bartender in 48 Hrs. (1982), then followed with parts in Hill's Streets of Fire (1984), Brewster's Millions (1985), Red Heat (1988), Johnny Handsome (1989), Wild Bill (1995) and Undisputed (2002).
For Carpenter, he was the scientist Paul Leahy in Prince of Darkness (1987) and the resistance fighter Gilbert in They Live (1988) before they reunited for Body Bags (1993), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Village of the Damned (1995), Escape From L.A. (1996) and Ghosts of Mars (2001).
He also had a regular role as Capt. Skip Gleason on the syndicated 1997-98 series Mike Hammer, Private Eye and recurred as Uncle Jim on the FX comedy Baskets from 2017-19.