Paul Gleason

Paul Xavier Gleason (May 4, 1939 – May 27, 2006) was an American actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Eleanor (née Doyle), a registered nurse, and George L. Gleason, a restaurateur, professional boxer, iron worker, and roofing manufacturer, Gleason was raised in Miami Beach, Florida. At sixteen, he left home and traveled the east coast by hitchhiking, sleeping on beaches and playing baseball along the way. He attended North Miami High School and later Florida State University, where he played football alongside Burt Reynolds.

Gleason's path to acting began through athletics. He signed a professional baseball contract with the Cleveland Indians and played briefly in two minor league seasons between 1959 and 1960, during which time he developed a friendship with Ted Williams — a relationship he later discussed in the 1997 book Ted Williams: A Tribute. A 1960 trip to the West Coast brought him into contact with Ozzie Nelson, who, following his practice of casting athletes in guest roles, arranged for Gleason to appear on Ozzie and Harriet. With his baseball career faltering, Gleason turned his attention to acting, relocating to New York City and joining The Actors Studio, where he studied for four years. It was during this period that he made his Broadway debut, appearing in Camelot in 1963. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career further.

On television, Gleason first gained wide recognition playing Dr. David Thornton on the daytime drama All My Children from 1976 to 1978. He then took on the role of Capt. Ernest "Tex" Lee in the 1979 miniseries Ike. His television work also included guest appearances on Columbo, two episodes of The A-Team, and episodes of Boy Meets World, in which he played a university dean across several installments. He appeared on Friends as Jack, Phoebe's boss at an investment company, in the season six episode "The One That Could Have Been," and had a role in one episode of Seinfeld as the man responsible for George Costanza being hired by the New York Yankees. In 2002, he appeared in episodes of Dawson's Creek as Larry Newman, the chief of a B movie studio, and also guest-starred in episodes of Drake & Josh and George Lopez.

In film, Gleason frequently portrayed antagonistic figures. He played Clarence Beeks, the Duke brothers' security consultant and fixer, in the 1983 comedy Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. His most enduring screen role came in 1985, when he portrayed Vice Principal Richard Vernon in John Hughes's The Breakfast Club. The character, a disciplinarian frequently at odds with the film's student protagonists — particularly Judd Nelson's John Bender — became closely identified with Gleason's screen persona. In an on-set interview, Gleason described the film's finale, in which Vernon reads an essay from the students challenging his assumptions about them, as a satori for the character, noting that Vernon is "supposed to realize something about the fact that he has let these kids down, and that he really hasn't understood them." Also in 1985, Gleason appeared as Jeremitt Towani in the made-for-TV film Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. In 1988, he played Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson in the Bruce Willis action film Die Hard, a role critic Roger Ebert described as a character with "one purpose: to be consistently wrong at every step of the way." That same year, Gleason appeared in Johnny Be Good as a high school football coach. He revisited his Breakfast Club persona directly in the 2000 A-Teens music video for "Dancing Queen" and in the 2001 comedy Not Another Teen Movie. Later film credits include Van Wilder (2002), in which he played an antagonistic professor, and the 2005 horror film Abominable, in which he appeared as the Sheriff. His final screen appearance was in the independent film The Book of Caleb. In 2006, The Breakfast Club received a special citation at the MTV Movie Awards honoring its continued influence, and Gleason was among the cast members present to accept the award.

Outside of his professional work, Gleason participated regularly in celebrity charity golf events and was known for interacting with fans and signing autographs at those tournaments. Shortly before his death, he published a book of poetry. He was married to actress Candy Moore from 1971 to 1978; they had one daughter, Shannon. From 1995 until his death, he was married to Susan Kehl; they had one daughter, Kaitlin. He also had a granddaughter at the time of his death.

Gleason died on May 27, 2006, at a hospital in Burbank, California, from pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining associated with asbestos exposure, which he is believed to have contracted while working on building sites for his father as a teenager. He was 67 years old and is buried near the southeast corner of Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles.