Bruce French, the dependable character actor who did lots of work for the theater and portrayed Father Lonigan, the blind priest on the soap opera Passions who somehow could sense that evil was imminent, has died. He was 79.
French died Friday in Los Angeles of complications from Alzheimer’s, his wife of 34 years, longtime Days of Our Lives actress Eileen Barnett, told The Hollywood Reporter.
The Iowa native, who has more than 150 acting credits on IMDb, guest-starred for David E. Kelley on such shows as L.A. Law, Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Public and Boston Legal, and he appeared on three Star Trek series — The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise — and in the 1998 film Star Trek: Insurrection.
Plus, he played the wealthy neighbor of Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver’s shifty characters on both seasons of the 2007-08 FX drama The Riches.
French recurred as the kind-hearted Lonigan during the entire nine-season run of Passions, which debuted on NBC in July 1999 and wrapped on DirecTV’s 101 Network in August 2008. A fixture in the New England town of Harmony, his character often clashed with bad guy businessman Alistair Crane (David Bailey and then John Reilly), who caused him to lose his sight.
French also played men of faith in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and in many other films and TV shows over the years. In fact, he owned a priest’s clerical collar that he would take with him on auditions, Barnett said.
The son of an undertaker, French was born in 1945 on the Fourth of July in Reinbeck, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa, served with the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and studied acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
He starred off-Broadway in 1972 in The Shadow of a Gunman, then made his onscreen debut in the Frank Perry-directed Man on a Swing (1974), starring Cliff Robertson and Joel Grey. He followed with two other notable films released in 1978: Hal Ashby’s Coming Home and Robert Mulligan’s Bloodbrothers.
French also appeared on the big screen in Christine (1983), Mr. Mom (1983), Fletch (1985), Murphy’s Romance (1985), Legal Eagles (1986), Wildcats (1986), Jurassic Park III (2001), Mr. Deeds (2002), Thank You for Not Smoking (2005), Beginners (2010) and Beautiful Boy (2010).
And for TV, he was on everything from The Waltons, Soap, Dallas, Family Ties, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Falcon Crest, Cheers and Designing Women to Who’s the Boss?, Beverly Hills, 90210, The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Bones, Mad Men, Eli Stone and Grey’s Anatomy.
One of French’s favorite stage roles was his turn as Lucky in an L.A. Actors Theatre production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot that was filmed for KCET’s Theatre in America series in 1977.
He also was at his best as the dispirited schoolmaster Andrew Crocker-Harris in 2009 in Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version at the Venice-based Pacific Resident Theatre.
French was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about four years ago, Barnett said. In addition to his wife — they first met at the University of Iowa, reconnected 25 years later and married in January 1991 — survivors include his nieces, Claire and Paula.
