8:31 AM PST 1/26/2021
in
Mike Barnes
Father of the late Bruno Kirby, he also played public prosecutor Bruce Rogoff in ‘LA Law’.
Bruce Kirby, the veteran character actor perhaps best known for portraying the naive Sgt. George Kramer in NBC’s long series Columbus, died. He was 95 years old.
Kirby, who excelled at representing authority figures during his more than five decades in show business, died on Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, reported his son, John.
Her eldest son, actor Bruno Kirby (The Godfather: Part II, When Harry Met Sally …, City Slickers), died in August 2006 of leukemia at the age of 57.
The older Kirby also played public prosecutor Bruce Rogoff at NBC’s LA Law, and early in his career he was one of the goofy policemen in the fictional world 53rd District in the Bronx seen at the beginning 1960s sitcom Car 54, where are you?
At Rob Reiner’s Stay with me (1986), Kirby played market owner Mr. Quidacioluo, who told Gordie (Wil Wheaton) that he looks like his older and deceased brother. He was also a detective in Throw mommy out of a train (1987), and the 2006 Academy Award winner for best film Beat, he appeared as Pop Ryan, the father of policeman John Ryan (Matt Dillon).
A New York native who studied with Lee Strasberg, Kirby (real name: Bruno Giovanni) also returned as Sgt. Al Vine in Kojak and starred as a San Francisco cop alongside Kojak co-star Kevin Dobson in another CBS police drama, Shannon.
In Columbus, your lack of imagination Sgt. Kramer always fell in love with the killer’s alibi, accepted the clues at face value and thought that Peter Falk’s character was crazy. Kirby appeared in nine episodes of the program that spanned more than two decades.
He played another cop to laugh on the 1976-77 crazy and short-lived show Holmes and Yo-Yo.
Kirby starred as the legendary TV presenter Arthur Godfrey in the 1985 film Good dreams, starring Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline, and appeared on the big screen in Catch-22 (1970), Don We‘ How to frame a Figg (1971), Armed and dangerous (1986), Another time, another place (1992) and Wonderful lord (1993).
After Arthur Miller saw him as Alfieri in an LA production of A view of the bridge, the playwright brought him to Broadway and cast him as Uncle Ben, opposite Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Seller in 1984. (Kirby made her Broadway debut in 1965 in Diamond Orchid.)
In addition to John Kirby, an acting coach, among the survivors are his wife, Roz.
Her son wrote: “Thank you dad for everything you taught me about acting and how to have such a strong work ethic while sharing your love for the arts and the art of it all. How good that you are there with Bruno and so many of our loved dear ones. “