Harris Yulin, the veteran character actor whose many film and TV credits included Scarface, Ghostbusters II, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Ozark, died of cardiac arrest Tuesday in New York City. He was 87.
His manager, Sue Leibman, confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly.
In a career spanning six decades, Yulin played more than 100 roles on stage and screen. Born Nov. 5, 1937, in Los Angeles, he made his New York stage debut in a 1963 production of Next Time I’ll Sing to You and landed his first screen role in the 1970 satire End of the Road, opposite James Earl Jones and Stacy Keach.
After making his Broadway debut in 1980’s Watch on the Rhine, Yulin would make several returns in productions including The Diary of Anne Frank, The Price, and Hedda Gabler. He also found success in film and TV, with roles in 1975’s Night Moves, 1976’s St. Ives, and 1979’s Steel.
Paramount/Photofest
One of Yulin’s most memorable roles came in 1983, when he played corrupt police officer Mel Bernstein in Brian De Palma‘s gangster classic Scarface. A few years later, he played Judge Stephen Wexler in Ghostbusters II, then had another outing as a corrupt lawman in the 1994 Harrison Ford thriller Clear and Present Danger. On the big screen, Yulin also starred in 1996’s Looking for Richard, 1997’s Bean, and the 1999 Denzel Washington thriller The Hurricane. He would later reunited with Washington for Training Day.
Yulin had a string of memorable television appearances as well. He starred in the acclaimed Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Duet,” a fan-favorite installment functioning as a two-hander with him and cast member Nana Visitor.
His appearance in a single episode of Frasier, as wise guy Jerome Balasco, earned Yulin an Emmy nomination. He also memorably appeared in episodes of 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Entourage. More recently, he played Buddy Dieker, the terminal housemate and eventual friend of the Byrde family in the Netflix crime drama Ozark. Other TV credits included Veep, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, And Just Like That, Billions, and Divorce.
Yulin spent several years teaching at Juilliard and Columbia University and directed several stage plays, including The Glass Menagerie and The Trip to Bountiful.
Jessica Miglio/Netflix/Everett
Prior to his death, Yulin was preparing to reunite with his Ozark costar Laura Linney for a role in American Classic, an upcoming MGM+ comedy about a Broadway actor who suffers a public meltdown.
American Classic director Michael Hoffman said in a statement, “Harris Yulin was very simply one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered. His marriage of immense technique with an always fresh sense of discovery, gave his work an immediacy and vitality and purity I’ve experienced nowhere else. And what he was as an actor, he was as a man, the grace, the humility, the generosity. All of us at American Classic have been blessed by our experience with him. He will always remain the beating heart of our show.”
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Yulin is survived by wife Kristen Lowman, son-in-law Ted Mineo, nephew Martin Crane, and godchildren Marco and Lara Greenberg.
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