Jason Wingreen

Jason Wingreen (October 9, 1920 – December 25, 2015) was an American actor born in Brooklyn, New York, who built a career spanning Broadway, film, and television over several decades. He grew up in Howard Beach, Queens, attended John Adams High School, and graduated from Brooklyn College in 1941, where he participated in the Varsity Dramatic Society. During his high school years he wrote about sports for the Brooklyn Eagle, initially intending to pursue journalism. His path changed after World War II, during which he served with the United States Army Air Force in England and Germany. Upon returning home, he used the G.I. Bill to study acting at the New School in New York City.

Wingreen was a co-founder of the Circle in the Square Theatre company in Greenwich Village. His Broadway debut came in 1954, when he appeared in two productions that year: The Girl on the Via Flaminia and Fragile Fox. These credits marked his only Broadway appearances on record.

On television, Wingreen held a recurring role as bartender Harry Snowden on the CBS sitcom All in the Family from 1976 to 1979, a character he continued to play on the spinoff series Archie Bunker's Place from 1979 to 1983. Earlier in his television career, he was a regular during the 1960–61 season of The Untouchables, portraying Police Captain Dorsett. He appeared in three episodes of the original Twilight Zone series — "A Stop at Willoughby," "The Midnight Sun," and "The Bard" — and also guest-starred on the original Star Trek series. He portrayed Adolf Hitler in a 1965 episode of Blue Light, played Roy Miller in a 1975 episode of Ellery Queen, and held a recurring role as Judge Arthur Beaumont on Matlock. In 1979 he was part of the ensemble cast of the television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, and in 1991 he guest-starred on General Hospital as Judge Mattson. His guest appearances across his career included Mission: Impossible, Bonanza, The Rockford Files, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, Outer Limits, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Armstrong Circle Theatre, and Alcoa Theatre. Following an appearance on Seinfeld in the 1990s, Wingreen retired from acting, with his last credited television work appearing on In the Heat of the Night in 1994.

In film, Wingreen played Nichols in the 1958 20th Century Fox production The Bravados. He provided the voice of bounty hunter Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), while English actor Jeremy Bulloch physically portrayed the character on screen. For the 2004 DVD release of the film, his dialogue was re-recorded by New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison, who had also portrayed Jango Fett in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), the film that established Boba Fett as Jango's clone. From the early 1960s, Wingreen was a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Wingreen married Gloria Scott Backe, known as Scotty, who died in 1996. They had one son, theoretical physicist Ned Wingreen. He was also survived by two grandchildren and his sister Harriet, a former pianist for the New York Philharmonic. Wingreen died on December 25, 2015, at his home in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 95.