LOS ANGELES -- Ron Glass, the handsome, prolific character actor best known for his role as the gregarious, sometimes sardonic detective Ron Harris in the long-running police comedy Barney Miller, has died at age 71.
Glass died Friday of respiratory failure, his agent, Jeffrey Leavett, said Saturday.
"Ron was a private, gentle and caring man," said Leavett, a longtime friend of the actor. "He was an absolute delight to watch on screen. Words cannot adequately express my sorrow."
Although best known for Barney Miller, Glass appeared in dozens of other shows in a television and film career dating to the early 1970s.
He portrayed Derrial Book, the spiritual shepherd with a cloudy past, in the 2002 science-fiction series Firefly and its 2005 film sequel Serenity.
He was Felix Unger opposite Desmond Wilson's Oscar Madison in The New Odd Couple, a 1980s reboot of the original Broadway show, film and television series that cast black actors in the lead roles of Unger's prissy neat freak who's forced to share an apartment with his slovenly friend Madison.
Glass was also the voice of Randy Carmichael, the genial neighbor and father of four children in the popular Nickelodeon cartoon series Rugrats and its spinoff, All Grown Up.
He also made appearances in such shows as Friends, Star Trek: Voyager and Designing Women.
Glass was also a member of the board of directors for Los Angeles' Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center, an organization named for a man murdered in a gang-initiation drive-by shooting. The organization is dedicated to helping inner-city youth stay safe and receive an education.
A Section on 11/28/2016