George Coe

George Coe, born George Julian Cohen on May 10, 1929, in New York, New York, was an American actor whose career spanned stage, television, film, and voice work across more than five decades. He died on July 18, 2015, in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 86, following a long illness that included lymphoma, a condition he had lived with for approximately twenty years. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, and four grandchildren.

Raised in Queens, New York, Coe was the son of a diamond dealer. He attended the Admiral Farragut Academy before enrolling at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. He served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, and after his military service he trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Coe began his Broadway career in 1957 and remained active on the New York stage through 1993. An early career highlight came with the 1963 cabaret production Money, in which he portrayed twenty-two different roles; the show ran for a year and earned praise from The New York Times. He was a member of the original Broadway casts of What Makes Sammy Run? and Mame, the latter of which he performed in for over a thousand performances. His Broadway credits also include Company and On the Twentieth Century.

Beyond the stage, Coe co-directed and co-produced the short parody film The Dove, a project that earned him an Academy Award nomination. He had been appearing in small television roles since the late 1960s when, in 1975, he was cast as part of the original ensemble of Saturday Night Live, joining the show in part to provide balance to its predominantly younger cast. At forty-six years old, he was the oldest new cast member in the program's history until 2014, when Leslie Jones joined at forty-seven. Coe appeared in eight episodes during that first season and returned to the show for guest appearances in 1978 and 1986.

In subsequent years he continued to take on supporting roles in numerous television series and films. He voiced the Autobot Wheeljack in Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon and provided the voice of Woodhouse, the valet character, in the FX animated series Archer. The first episode of Archer's seventh season, "The Figgis Agency," was dedicated to his memory following his death.