Clarence Gilyard Jr dies at 66

Actor and academic Clarence known Gilyard Jr, for his roles in TV series as Walker, such Texas Ranger and Matlock, as well as films including Die Hard (1988) and Top Gun (1986), has died at the age of 66. The University of Nevada,

Las Vegas’ College of Fine Arts, where Gilyard was a film and theatre professor, shared the news. No cause of death has been shared yet, as reported by Variety.

Gilyard’s career spanned years more than 30 in film, television and theatre. His first movie role was as Sundown in Top Gun, and he later went on to make a lasting impression in Die Hard as the wise-cracking computer whiz baddie

Theo.

Gilyard was born in 1955 in Moses Lake, Washington, US, and later attended high school in California. He earned a BA in Theatre Arts from California

State University, moving to Los

Angeles to pursue an acting career in the late ’70s.

After Walker and Texas

Ranger, Gilyard took a sabbatical from acting and completed an MFA in Theatre Performance at Southern Methodist University, later joining the UNLV College of Fine Arts. In

2020, Gilyard reprised the role of Theo in a super-sized commercial.

“His students were deeply him, inspired by as were all who knew him. He had many extraordinary talents and was extremely well-known in the university,” said UNLV Dean Nancy

J Uscher of Gilyard. Tributes for the late actor

Twitter. came on Screenwriter Ben Trebilcook wrote: “Sad to learn of the passing of Professor Clarence Gilyard. A terrific of actor, too, whom course played Theo in

#DieHard, a surviving character I brought

Hard back in my Die 6. Sending Thoughts and family prayers to his at this time (sic).”

PHOTO: TWITTER