Gerrit Graham Joey Foley/Getty Images Gerrit Graham, the interesting character actor who appeared in Phantom of the Paradise and three other films for Brian De Palma and wrote the Grateful Dead song “Victim or the Crime” with Bob Weir, died Tuesday, his family announced. He was 77.
Graham also portrayed an aspiring country singer in Paul Bartel’s Cannonball! (1976); a computer nerd opposite Julie Christie in Demon Seed (1977); the abusive boyfriend of Susan Sarandon’s character in Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby (1978); one of the scheming salesmen in Robert Zemeckis’ Used Cars (1980); and the foster father of Alex Vincent’s Andy Barkley in Child’s Play 2 (1990).
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Graham made his onscreen debut as a conspiracy nut in De Palma’s Greetings (1968) and returned as another character in the sequel Hi, Mom! (1970), both featuring Robert De Niro in early career roles.
In one of his best-known turns, he portrayed the electrocuted glam rock star known as Beef in Phantom of the Paradise (1974), then reunited with De Palma in the Kirk Douglas-starring Home Movies (1979), where Graham’s guy runs an EST-like summer camp called “Spartanetics.”
Graham and Weir first met in the 1970s through a mutual friend, and he helped out his friend on “Victim or the Crime,” which the Dead recorded for their 13th and final studio album, Built to Last, released in 1989. He said the memorable first line, “Patience runs out on the junkie,” was his.
Born in New York on Nov. 27, 1949, Graham was raised in St. Louis, Chicago and Grosse Pointe, Michigan, before he attended Columbia University a few years after De Palma graduated. (The two were managers of the school’s theater company, the Columbia Players.)
Graham played the ruthless, right-hand man of George Kennedy’s Carter McKay on CBS’ Dallas in 1988-89 and voiced Franklin Sherman, the adoptive dad of Jon Lovitz’s character, on the 1994-95 ABC-Fox animated comedy The Critic.
Over the years, he showed up on everything from Starsky and Hutch, Laverne & Shirley, St. Elsewhere, China Beach and The Larry Sanders Show to Seinfeld, The Wonder Years, The Larry Sanders Show, Star Trek: Voyager and Law & Order.
His big-screen credits also included Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976), National Lampoon’s Class Reunion (1982), The Annihilators (1985), Last Resort (1986) and This Boy’s Life (1993).
As a screenwriter, Graham wrote on three episodes of the rebooted Twilight Zone in 1985-86, contributed to the films Oliver & Company (1988) and The Little Mermaid (1989) and co-wrote the 1990 short film The Prince and the Pauper alongside his brother, Sam Graham.
Survivors also include his wife, Deborah, whom he married in 1982; his sons, Jack and Henry; and his grandchildren, Nolan, Micah, Vera and Joey.
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