Philip Baker Hall

The veteran character actor died on Sunday night “surrounded by loved ones,” tweeted his neighbor, “Los Angeles Times” reporter Sam Farmer.

Hall was raised “in the slums of the north end of Toledo” during the Depression, as the actor told The Washington Post in 2017. Despite his wide range of work, Hall acknowledged he had a particular gift for portraying grim characters. Hall first met Anderson while filming a PBS movie, where Anderson was working as a production assistant. I didn’t know where to start,” Hall told the outlet. The actor’s naivete would give way to a five-decade career, with at least 185 titles on his IMDB page. The world has an empty space in it.”

Philip Baker Hall, the prolific character actor of film and theater who starred in Paul Thomas Anderson's early movies and who memorably hunted down a ...

“I’m reading this script, and I truly had trouble believing that that kid wrote this script,” Hall told the AV Club in 2012. In it, Hall played a wise and courteous itinerate gambler named Sydney who schools a young drifter (John C. Reilly) on the craft. Anderson, believing Hall hadn't gotten his due in film, asked him to look at a script he had written for a 20-minute short film titled “Cigarettes & Coffee.” While shooting bit parts in Hollywood (an episode of “Good Times” was one of his first gigs), Hall worked with the L.A. Actor Theatre. There he played Richard Nixon in the one-act play “Secret Honor,” a role he reprised in Robert Altman's 1984 film adaptation. “I had an affinity for playing those roles.” His range was wide, but Hall, who had a natural gravitas, often played men in suits, trench coats and lab coats.

He appeared in “Secret Honor,” “Boogie Nights,” “Seinfeld” and dozens of other movies and television shows.

In his final film, “The Last Word” (2017), he was the ex-husband of a retired executive (Shirley MacLaine) determined to control her own obituary. He had learned the character types that summoned the best of his gifts — “highly stressed older men,” he said in the Washington Post interview, “who are at the limit of their tolerance for suffering and stress and pain.” In 1973, Mr. Hall married Dianne Lewis. They divorced in 1976, and he married Holly Wolfle in 1981. Even “ Secret Honor,” the one-man Nixon film, began as a stage script, first performed at the Provincetown Playhouse in Manhattan. In “Boogie Nights” (1997), he played a budget-conscious porn-theater magnate. Mr. Hall had small roles in international touring productions with the American Repertory Company, a cultural exchange program. And he was the star of “ Hard Eight” (1996), as a preternaturally calm retired professional gambler who is sincerely trying to help an aimless younger man. It sometimes seemed that Mr. Hall had appeared on every series of his day. The raspy voice, the resigned posture, the world-weary eyes with heavy bags and the thatch of hair that gradually turned white magnified a gravitas that made Mr. Hall’s characters believable, even when audiences knew better. It was, in fact, “one of the last roles I ever auditioned for, simply because so many doors opened up” afterward. In a career of more than 80 films and 200 television appearances, he was often cast as men accustomed to being listened to — doctors, lawyers, generals, detectives, cabinet members, priests and way too many judges. “You never get to walk around.”

Philip Baker Hall Dies: 'Seinfeld,' 'Curb' Actor Who Worked With Paul Thomas Anderson On 'Magnolia,' 'Boogie Nights' And 'Hard Eight' Was 90.

The world has an empty space in it. My neighbor, friend, and one of the wisest, most talented and kindest people I’ve ever met, Philip Baker Hall, died peacefully last night. The world has an empty space in it.” In the Season 4 episode “Mel’s Offer,” David sees his physician about a cut on his head. Farmer announced Hall’s death on Twitter, writing, “My neighbor, friend, and one of the wisest, most talented and kindest people I’ve ever met, Philip Baker Hall, died peacefully last night. When Seinfeld seems to have had enough and asks Bookman what his problem is, Hall replied, in his best Joe Friday delivery: “What’s my problem?

Philip Baker Hall, the prolific actor known for his roles in films like "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights," has died. He was 90.

Hall’s career in film continued to grow in the ’90s and 2000s with films such as “The Truman Show” (1998), “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999), “The Insider” (1999), “Dogville” (2003), “Bruce Almighty” (2003), “Zodiac” (2007) and “Argo” (2012). Hall also began working with Paul Thomas Anderson during the decade, starring in his short film “Cigarettes & Coffee” in 1993, which then led to his directorial debut “Hard Eight” (1996) in which Hall stars alongside John C. Reilly. Hall later appeared in Anderson’s films “Boogie Nights” (1997) and “Magnolia” (1999), playing an adult theater magnate and a children’s game show host, respectively. Hall had an impressive career of over six decades, holding roles in some of the most beloved movies and television of the modern era.

Actor Philip Baker Hall, whose career ranged from a scene-stealing stint on 'Seinfeld' to collaborations with director Paul Thomas Anderson, has died.

“He was a fan of my work, so how could I not like him?” Hall said of Anderson in a 2017 interview with the Washington Post. “We would talk and have cigarettes and coffee.” “By the standards of a struggling stage actor, I’ve been doing well.” “It has nothing to do with it, once you’re given the keys to the kingdom.” In the early 1990s, Hall made a pair of memorable appearances as a hard-boiled detective pursuing a 20-years-overdue library book on “Seinfeld,” drawing new fans to his work. “Although Hall never resorts to a cliched impersonation, his suggestion of Nixon’s physiognomy is frequently uncanny, especially in profile.” After building a career on the New York stage, he relocated to Los Angeles and made his big-screen debut with an uncredited role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1970 film “Zabriskie Point.”

He was a regular in the early films of Paul Thomas Anderson and a familiar face in dozens of film and television shows from the early 1970s to the late ...

"Then things just started exploding all over the place for me." "I remember that Jerry [Seinfeld] had a hard time keeping a straight face during the reading. Usually, when you read for things, no one lets on too much, even if they like you," he added. "He was just a walking encyclopedia of film; he knew it all," Hall told the theater publication Playbill in 2000. "Hall looks a little like the real Nixon; he could be a cousin, and he sounds a little like him. Instantly recognizable for his hangdog expressions and leathery voice, he conveyed equal parts wisdom and melancholy with seeming ease