Darren "Night Stalker" McGavin dead at 83

Perennial character actor Darren McGavin, whose many TV roles included a starring turn as Carl Kolchak in the 1974-75 cult horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, has died at 83.

The gruff-voiced McGavin had the title role as Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled private eye in the 1958 series Mike Hammer, and was a grouchy but buffoonish dad in the 1983 holiday classic A Christmas Story. He guested as G.F. Brenton/Dominic Dracon in The Silver Falcon, a 1995 episode of the Walt Disney Television Animation series Gargoyles.

Other TV roles included Grey Holden in Riverboat, Nick Small in Small & Frye, Casey in The Big Story, Sam Parkhill in The Martian Chronicles and David Rodd in The Outsider.

McGavin died at a Los Angeles-area hospital of natural causes. His family was at his side, son Bogart said.

McGavin was born on May 7, 1922, in San Joaquin, California. He received his dramatic arts training at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse (under coach Sanford Meisner) and the Actors Studio (where he received a BFA in theatre/acting).

He debuted in movies in 1945 with A Song to Remember, in which he had an uncredited bit part. He had been a painter of movie sets.

McGavin studied acting in New York for a decade, then went to Hollywood and became a prolific television and movie actor, guesting in many TV series and starring in five.

In 1955, he portrayed Louie the drug pusher in The Man with the Golden Arm and Capt. Russ Peters in The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, both directed by Otto Preminger.

Other theatrical and TV movies included The Great Sioux Massacre (1965), The Outsider (1967), The Challengers (1970) and Tribes (1970). He was also in the movie The Natural. He portrayed Gen. George Patton in the 1979 TV-movie Ike.

McGavin guested in dozens of TV series, including Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildare, Mission: Impossible and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

He was cast as Kolchak in the 1972 TV-movie The Night Stalker, a low-budget effort about a vampire causing panic in Las Vegas. It was the highest-rated TV-movie of the year.

In 1973, The Night Strangler set Kolchak in Seattle. Also a successful TV-movie, it led to the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

McGavin received only one Emmy nomination in his long career. He was given it in 1990 for an appearance as Candice Bergen's opinionated father Bill Brown in the Murphy Brown episode "Brown Like Me."

He did win an ACE Award in 1992 for Actor in a Dramatic Series for Clara.

McGavin's stage appearances across the United States included the productions Death of a Salesman, The Rainmaker, The King and I and Blood Sweat & Stanley Poole.

Darren McGavin was married to Melanie York from 1944 until their divorce in 1969. They had four children: York, Megan, Graemm Bridget and Bogart. He was married to Kathie Browne from 1969 until her death in 2003 of natural causes after a very short illness.

Wrote S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler on Darren McGavin and Kathie Browne's Authorized Internet Web Site (www.darrenmcgavin.net): "Darren is gone, but in many respects he will always be with us: as Carl Kolchak, fighting authority and battling monsters; the grumpy Old Man sending curses over Lake Michigan; as David Ross, the outsider, Grey Holden, captain of the Enterprise, the irascible detective Mike Hammer or any number of memorable guest star appearances, most notably as Joe Bascome on Gunsmoke and as the washed-up old actor from Distant Signals.

"Please take a moment in your sadness to reflect upon all the ways Darren touched your lives, say a prayer and raise a glass to toast a career which spanned over fifty years and affected us all in ways too numerous to count."