American character actor Paul Gleason, best known for his role of the disciplinarian principal Richard Vernon in the 1985 film
The Breakfast Club, succumbed to lung cancer in a Burbank hospital on Saturday.
The 67-year-old actor was suffering from mesothelioma, a type of cancer related to asbestos exposure, his wife Susan said. Gleason had made appearances in over 60 films and TV shows, with his recent performances being cameos in
Friends and Seinfeld.
Susan Gleason described her husband as 'awesome'. “Whenever you were with Paul, there was never a dull moment,” she added. Condoling her father's death, Gleason's daughter Shannon said, “My dad was an intelligent, hard-working Renaissance man. His motto was to always keep working.” Gleason's longtime friend actor Jimmy Hawkins said the deceased actor had a great sense of humor. “He just always had great stories to tell,” Hawkins reminisced. According to Shannon, Gleason was exposed to asbestos when he assisted his father on construction sites during his teenage years.
Born on May 4, 1944, in Jersey City in New Jersey, Gleason graduated from Florida State University. He was a footballer and baseball player in his younger days and was known to be an avid golfer in his late life. Influenced by
Splendor in the Grass, a 1961 film, he decided to become and actor and joined the Actors Studio to hone his skills.
Gleason made his showbiz debut with a 1965 movie
Winter A-Go-Go. Later between 1976 and 1978, he became famous as David Thornton in the TV series
All My Children. A number of small roles in films and TV followed, after which in 1985, he played Richard Vernon, a character which was used later in the film
Not Another Teen Movie.
Some of the projects Gleason worked on include
The National Lampoon's Van Wilder,
Die Hard, and
Dawson's Creek among several others. Gleason had a stint with Broadway too, having done
The Gingerbread Lady in 1971 and
The Front Page in 1972.
His personal life consisted of two marriages, the first being to Canadian actress Joanna Gleason and the second to Susan. Besides Shannon, Gleason has another daughter, Kaitlin.
