“Character actor David Huddleston, a prolific Hollywood presence with a whopping 145 credits to his name, died Tuesday of advanced heart and kidney disease at his home in Santa Fe, the Los Angeles Times reports. Huddleston was 85.
“Huddleston was a frequent presence both in films and on television for over 50 years. Among his better-known roles are one of Rock Ridge’s many men named Johnson in Blazing Saddles; Santa Claus himself in the 1985 Dudley Moore movie of the same name; Stars Hollow mayor Harry Porter on Gilmore Girls; and Grandpa Arnold on The Wonder Years, for which he was nominated for an Emmy in 1990.
“He will perhaps be best remembered, though, for the Coen Brothers’s cult opus The Big Lebowski, in which Huddleston played the title character, Jeffrey Lebowski—a grumpy, wheelchair-bound millionaire who serves as the film’s primary antagonist.”
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