Veteran actor Norman Lloyd, who worked with Hitchcock, Chaplin, dies at 106 in Los Angeles

ByABC7.com staff KABC logo
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Veteran actor Norman Lloyd dies at 106 in Los Angeles
Norman Lloyd, an actor who worked with Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock, starred on "St. Elsewhere" and continued to work past 100, has died at 106, according to published reports.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Norman Lloyd, an actor, producer and director whose career spanned more than eight decades in stage, film and television, has died at age 106 at his Los Angeles home, according to published reports.

Lloyd's career ranged from making films with Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin to starring in "St. Elsewhere" in the 1980s and even a guest role on "Modern Family" in 2010 at age 96.

His last film role was in the 2015 Amy Schumer comedy "Trainwreck," released when he was 100 years old.

Lloyd's manager, Marion Rosenberg, told The Associated Press that the actor died Tuesday at his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The list of other accomplished actors and directors Lloyd worked with throughout his career ranges from Orson Welles and Buster Keaton to Robin Williams, Denzel Washington and Martin Scorsese.

His credits stretch from the earliest known U.S. TV drama, 1939s "On the Streets of New York" on the nascent NBC network, to 21st-century projects including "The Practice."

An abridged list of his TV roles includes guest appearances on "Cheers," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Murder, She Wrote," "The Paper Chase," "Quincy M.E." and "Kojak."

His most notable film part was as the villain who plummets off the Statue of Liberty in 1942s "Saboteur," directed by Hitchcock, who also cast Lloyd in the classic thriller 1945's "Spellbound."

Other movie credits include Jean Renoir's "The Southerner," Charlie Chaplin's "Limelight," "Dead Poets Society" with Robin Williams, "In Her Shoes" with Cameron Diaz and "Gangs of New York" with Daniel Day-Lewis.

Born Nov. 8, 1914, in Jersey City, New Jersey, Lloyd jumped into acting as a youngster in the 1920s. On stage, he was a regular with Welles' Mercury Theater, the groundbreaking 1930s troupe that also featured Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorehead and formed the basis of Welles' classic film debut, "Citizen Kane."

His other plays included "Crime," directed by Elia Kazan and featuring his future wife, Peggy Craven. The couple were married for 75 years, until Peggy Lloyd's death in 2011 at age 98.

TV viewers knew him best as the memorable calm center of St. Eligius hospital on the 1982-88 NBC drama series "St. Elsewhere." His Dr. Daniel Auschlander was originally only supposed to appear in a few episodes, but Lloyd became a series regular and stayed with the show for the entire run. The series would inspire such shows as "E.R." and "Grey's Anatomy."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.