Richard Erdman

Richard Erdman's lengthy acting career spanned everything from science-fiction to sitcoms, containing many memorable roles in film and television. Erdman got his start in the '40s with small roles in minor films like the action-filled "Objective, Burma" and the romantic melodrama "Wild Harvest," which starred Dorothy Lamour as a scheming drifter who manipulates her husband into funding her lavish lifestyle. In 1953, Erdman landed a pivotal role as a defiant barracks chief in "Stalag 17," about a group of American World War II P.O.W.s who suspect one of their fellow prisoners has turned against them. A few years later, he was cast as wealthy playboy Richard Fairfield III in the short-lived series "The Tab Hunter Show" and landed a recurring role as a philosophizing photographer in "Saints and Sinners," about the staff of a fictional New York City newspaper. Erdman appeared as a down-and-out man who receives an unexpected gift in the famous "Twilight Zone" episode "A Kind of Stopwatch" and later played a war-weary colonel in "Tora! Tora! Tora!," about the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 2009, he joined the cast of the meta-comedy TV series "Community" as Leonard, an elderly, prank-loving community college student who antagonizes the school with his rowdy friends. His final acting appearance came in an episode of "Dr. Ken" (ABC 2015-17), starring Erdman's former "Community" co-star Ken Jeong. Richard Erdman died in an assisted living facility in Los Angeles on March 16, 2019. He was 93.