John Lawlor, who portrayed one of Cloris Leachman’s co-workers on the CBS sitcom Phyllis and the Eastland School for Girls headmaster on the first season of the NBC comedy The Facts of Life, has died. He was 83.
Lawlor died Feb. 13 at a veterans’ hospice facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, his family announced.
His 60-plus years as an actor also included turns in such films as Blake Edwards’ S.O.B. (1981) and Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp (1994).
Lawlor played the inept Leonard Marsh, who works with Leachman’s Phyllis Lindstrom in the San Francisco City Supervisor’s office, on the second and last season (1976-77) of Phyllis, one of the many Mary Tyler Moore Show spinoffs. (He had portrayed a cop on a first-season episode.)
When The Facts of Life — a Diff’rent Strokes spinoff — premiered in August 1979, Lawlor was there as headmaster Steven Bradley. He appeared on all 13 installments of the first season but none after that, to be replaced by Roger Perry’s Charles Parker.
The eldest of six children, John Henry Lawlor III was born on June 5, 1941, in Troy, New York. He was raised in Boulder, Colorado, where his mother, Carolyn, taught special-needs children at a middle school.
He graduated from the University of Colorado, and as a member of the Nomad Players — a company that also gave Larry Linville and Joan Van Ark their starts — he acted in Sweeney Todd and other productions.
After serving in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Lawlor made his first onscreen appearances on 1975 episodes of The Rockford Files and Ellery Queen and played a deputy in Jackson County Jail (1976), starring Yvette Mimieux, before landing on Phyllis.
His résumé included guest spots on Alice, Barney Miller, Newhart, T.J. Hooker, Sledge Hammer!, Knots Landing, L.A. Law, Breaking Bad and Longmire; other films like The Gumball Rally (1976), Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977) and Movie Madness (1982); and a stint in the ’80s as a dad (“Good stuff, Maynard”) in a Malt-O-Meal cereal commercial.
Lawlor also served as an assistant director on features including Excalibur (1981), Neil Jordan’s Angel (1982), Highlander (1986), A Prayer for the Dying (1987) and Driftwood (1997).
Survivors include his children, Eric, Bryan, Annie, Elizabeth and Riel, brothers Thomas and Dave and three grandchildren. His second wife was Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal (Dances With Wolves); they were married from 1988 until their 2000 divorce.