Bruce Glover, ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ actor, dies at 92

Bruce Glover, the esteemed character actor who starred opposite Sean Connery as Bond villain Mr. Wint in Diamonds are Forever, has died. He was 92.

His son, actor Crispin Glover, announced the news in a Saturday Instagram post, sharing an old black-and-white photograph of his father in army attire. Bruce died of natural causes on March 12, 2025, a rep for Crispin confirmed to Entertainment Weekly. The late actor is survived by his son, after wife Betty Glover died in 2016.

Across his decades-long career, Glover accrued over 100 onscreen credits, and appeared in dozens of plays. He never attended acting school himself, but in his later years, went on to teach acting classes himself in Los Angeles.

Born on May 2, 1932, to parents Herbert and Eva, Bruce Glover did not originally intend to pursue a Hollywood career. He considered making his living as a painter or athlete before another possibility presented itself during his years at Wright Junior College. While posing for a student art class, a fellow model asked him to don a gorilla suit for an act she was in — thus giving Glover his first acting gig. He never looked back.

“I was always an actor and didn’t know I was acting,” he told the James Bond Radio Podcast in 2015. “I loved going to movies, and I would direct people in scenes that I’d seen in movies and act different roles. I had an instinct for it.”

Glover stuck with the variety show act for its six-week duration. At 21, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and was stationed in Korea, where he served from 1953-55. Upon his return, Glover appeared in a string of TV shows including Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, and The Dukes of Hazard.

Glover’s most high-profile gig came in 1971, when he landed the role of assassin Mr. Wint alongside Putter Smith’s Mr. Kidd in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. Glover furthered his success as Duffy in 1974’s Chinatown and hustler James Coburn in 1975’s Hard Times. He also appeared as Grady Coker in the cult hit Walking Tall, and its two sequels, Walking Tall Part 2 and Walking Tall: Final Chapter. From there, he landed guest spots on such TV shows as Hart to Hart, The A-Team, and Murder, She Wrote.

In 2007, his son Crispin directed him in the film It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine, and they later acted together in 2015’s Influence.

“It was very easy to work with him as a director,” Crispin later told the AV Club. “It was a very interesting experience to work with him as an actor, because when you’re acting with somebody you tend toward looking in their eyes more than you do in real life. When we talk in real life, we tend toward looking a bit and looking away…. It was very interesting looking into the eyes of my father, which I don’t do as much.”

Bruce was a working actor up until the last decade of his life, with his role in Influence listed as his final credit, according to IMDB.

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In a 2019 interview for The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology, Glover opened up about the “learning process” inspired by his many near-death experiences, including a motorcycle accident that saw him careening toward a cow.

“I ran into a cow that had ran out on the side of the road. A big steer with horns coming right at my face,” he recalled. “And I knew I was going to die, but I noticed that his mouth was slopping his tongue out. And I laughed. So even at that moment when I knew I was probably going to die, I found it funny.”

He concluded, “So live it till the end and laugh when you can.”