Ron McLarty

Ronald William McLarty, born April 26, 1947, in Providence, Rhode Island, was an American actor, playwright, novelist, and audiobook narrator whose career spanned stage, television, film, and literature. He died on February 8, 2020, at the age of 72, having lived with dementia since 2014. He was survived by his wife, three sons, and seven grandchildren.

McLarty's professional stage career began in the early 1970s, when he was cast as Lucky in Michael Weller's Moonchildren for its American premiere at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in November 1971. He remained with the production as it transferred to Broadway in 1972. His Broadway work continued through 1991 and included a credit in Good. A graduate of Rhode Island College with the class of 1969, McLarty returned to his alma mater in 2007 as commencement speaker and received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the institution.

Beyond the stage, McLarty was a recurring presence on television, most notably co-starring on Spenser: For Hire as Boston homicide detective Sgt. Frank Belson. He also wrote dozens of plays and ten novels. His novel The Memory of Running, published by Viking Press in 2004, reached bestseller status after Stephen King encountered an audiobook version narrated by McLarty and publicly praised it as the best book you can't read, prompting Viking Press to bring it to print. Subsequent novels published by Viking Press included Traveler in 2007 and Art in America in 2008.

Narration became a significant dimension of McLarty's career, with his recorded catalog exceeding 100 audiobook titles and earning him multiple Audie Awards. Among the works he narrated were Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the unabridged edition of George W. Bush's Decision Points.