Gerald S. O'Loughlin

Gerald Stuart O'Loughlin Jr. (December 23, 1921 – July 31, 2015) was an American actor and director born in New York City who worked across stage, television, and film. Before pursuing acting, he earned a college degree in mechanical engineering. O'Loughlin served two tours of duty with the United States Marine Corps, enlisting during World War II and returning to active duty for the Korean War. Following his military service, he used GI Bill benefits to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, and later continued his training at the Actors Studio.

O'Loughlin's professional stage career began in repertory work at Crystal Lake Theatre in upstate New York. His Broadway career spanned from 1952 to 1968 and included appearances in A Touch of the Poet, Lovers and Other Strangers, and the comedy Happily Ever After. He played Cheswick in the stage production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Cort Theatre beginning in 1963. Among his most notable stage achievements was a national tour of A Streetcar Named Desire in which he portrayed Stanley Kowalski opposite Tallulah Bankhead as Blanche DuBois.

Television became the primary arena for O'Loughlin's career throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He was frequently cast as tough, rough-edged characters, and accumulated an extensive list of guest appearances on prominent series. Early credits included a 1962 episode of the ABC comedy-drama Going My Way and a 1965 appearance on Gunsmoke, in which he played a gang leader holding stagecoach passengers hostage. He appeared in two different roles across two seasons of The F.B.I., portraying truck driver Carl Munger in 1966 and a robber named Kulhane in 1972. His work on Hawaii Five-O spanned three episodes between 1969 and 1970, with his first two appearances featuring the same character. Additional guest roles came on The Green Hornet, Mission: Impossible, Cannon, and Quincy, where he played Adam Beale, the chief of a hijack containment unit. From 1970 to 1971, he portrayed Devin McNeil in the CBS crime drama Storefront Lawyers, which was later retitled Men at Law.

O'Loughlin's most recognized television role was Lt. Ed Ryker on the ABC series The Rookies, a part he held from 1972 to 1976. He subsequently appeared in the pilot episode of The Eddie Capra Mysteries in 1978 and had roles in several television miniseries that same year and the next, including Wheels, Women in White, Roots: The Next Generations, and Blind Ambition. In 1983, he appeared as Sgt. O'Toole in The Blue and the Gray and as Gen. Schwerin in the M*A*S*H episode "Bombshells." That same year he was a regular on the series Automan. He joined the cast of Our House in 1986 and appeared in a first-season episode of Highway to Heaven as Mr. Parks. In 1988 he played Tom Callahan in Dirty Dancing, and in 1992 he appeared as Ben Oliver in a Murder She Wrote episode titled "Badge of Honor." He also reunited with Gunsmoke lead actor James Arness in the made-for-TV film McClain's Law, which served as the pilot for Arness's 1981–82 police detective series.

O'Loughlin's film credits include Ensign Pulver, In Cold Blood, Ice Station Zebra, The Valachi Papers, and Twilight's Last Gleaming. In his personal life, he and his then-wife Meryl Abeles had two children: Chris O'Loughlin, born in 1967, who was a member of the 1992 United States Olympic épée fencing team, and Laura O'Loughlin. Gerald S. O'Loughlin died of natural causes in Los Angeles on July 31, 2015, at the age of 93.