Home Alone dad, Sopranos’ bad detective

NEW YORK — Actor John

Heard, whose many roles included the father in the Home

Alone series and a corrupt detective in The Sopranos, has died. He was 71.

His death was confirmed Saturday by the medical examiner’s office in Santa Clara, Calif. TMZ reported that Heard, who lived in southern California, was found at a Palo Alto, Calif., hotel where he was recovering from back surgery.

Heard played Peter McCallister, the father of Kevin, played by Macaulay Culkin, in

Home Alone and Home Alone

2: Lost in New York. He said in later interviews that he sought a movie with kids in it so his son, age 5 at the time, could go to the set and have someone to play with.

After it became a hit, he was reluctant to revisit the role, but his agent convinced him that the money was too good to pass up.

“I didn’t want to be the

Home Alone dad for the rest of my life,” he told Yahoo News in 2013.

He was born March 7, 1946, in Washington, D.C., and grew up performing in local theater. One of his memorable early roles was as a disabled Vietnam War veteran in the 1981 film Cutter’s Way.

He was active in film for the next decade, playing Tom Hanks’ rival in Big, actress Geraldine Page’s son in The Trip to Bountiful and in the movies The Pelican Brief, Beaches, Gladiator, Rambling Rose and After Hours.

He earned an Emmy nomination for playing Vin Makazian in The Sopranos. Television also kept him busy. He acted in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Elementary, Prison Break, Modern Family and Entourage. One of his favorite jobs came in the original Sharknado television movie in 2013.

“I knew it was going to be a cult classic,” he told the Baltimore Media Blog last year. “It’s just ridiculous. I thought it would replace people calling me the Home Alone dad.”

Fellow actor Michael McKean paid tribute on Twitter on Saturday: “RIP John Heard. Never not good.”

Heard was married and divorced three times, including briefly to actress Margot Kidder. He had three children.