Richard Libertini obit

Richard Libertini, Actor, Dies at 82

He was not on the list.

Richard Libertini, a character actor best known for his antic turn as a deranged Latin American general in the 1979 film comedy “The In-Laws,” died on Thursday at his home in Venice, Calif. He was 82.

The cause was cancer, said his former wife, Melinda Dillon.

A madcap, bearded Ichabod Crane who could spout a Babel of foreign accents, Mr. Libertini made his early career with the Second City, the storied Chicago improvisational troupe, and went on to be a ubiquitous presence on stage, screen and television.

Reviewing him in a Yale Repertory Theater production of “Neapolitan Ghosts,” by Eduardo De Filippo in 1986, Mel Gussow wrote in The New York Times: “Richard Libertini is a master of what could be called the comedy of madness. His funniest characters are furious and at least on the borderline of delirium.”

Mr. Libertini delighted critics as General Garcia, the moneyed, genteelly vulgar and more-than-borderline-delirious dictator of a banana republic in “The In-Laws,” which starred Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.

The character is advised by a political counselor formed, à la Señor Wences, from Mr. Libertini’s lipsticked thumb and forefinger; he also owns a vast collection of paintings on black velvet.

Mr. Libertini’s other memorable screen roles include Prahka Lasa, the nebbishy swami in the 1984 Steve Martin-Lily Tomlin vehicle “All of Me.” Entrusted with a bowl containing the soul of a wealthy dowager, Mr. Libertini fumbles it, loses the soul and, in hurtling, inexact English, admonishes it: “Beck-in-bowl! Beck-in-bowl!”

Onstage, he appeared in “The Mad Show,” a 1966 Off Broadway revue inspired by Mad magazine, which also starred MacIntyre Dixon, Paul Sand, Linda Lavin and Jo Anne Worley.

The son of Italian immigrants, Richard Joseph Libertini was born in Cambridge, Mass., on May 21, 1933. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Emerson College in Boston, he moved to New York.

There, with Mr. Dixon and Lynda Segal, he wrote and performed in “Stewed Prunes,” a revue inspired by vaudeville and silent film comedy.

 “We got credit for social criticism,” Mr. Libertini, recalling the revue, told The Times in 1982. “That always amazed us. We were just trying to get some laughs.”

“Stewed Prunes” played at the Greenwich Village coffeehouse Take 3, on Bleecker Street, in 1960, before moving up the block to the Circle in the Square. (On a Chicago swing with a national tour of the show, Mr. Libertini was invited to join the Second City.)

Reviewing “Stewed Prunes” in The Times, Lewis Funke commended it for “a sort of lunacy that has all but vanished from the theater.”

Mr. Libertini, who was billed early on as Dick Libertini, made his Broadway debut in 1966 as Father Drobney in the original cast of Woody Allen’s comedy “Don’t Drink the Water.”

His other Broadway credits include “Paul Sills’ Story Theatre” (1970); “Metamorphoses,” by Ovid (1971); “Bad Habits,” by Terrence McNally (1974); and, in an act of coming full circle, “Honeymoon Motel,” by Mr. Allen, staged in 2011 as part of the Broadway triptych “Relatively Speaking.”

He also played Don Adriano in Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Public Theater and Jaques in “As You Like It” in Central Park.

On film, he played the boss of Chevy Chase’s dissolute newspaperman Irwin Fletcher in “Fletch” (1985) and its sequel, “Fletch Lives” (1989). His other film credits include “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968), “Catch-22” (1970), “Popeye” (1980), “Sharky’s Machine” (1981), “Unfaithfully Yours” (1984) and “Awakenings” (1990).

On television, Mr. Libertini had a regular role as the Godfather on the ABC satire “Soap” and played the defense lawyer Barry Slotnick in “The Trial of Bernhard Goetz,” a 1988 “American Playhouse” production on PBS.

He had guest roles on many other shows, among them “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Barney Miller,” “Mork & Mindy,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Law & Order” and “The Drew Carey Show.”

Mr. Libertini’s marriage to Ms. Dillon, a film and television actress, ended in divorce. Survivors include their son, Richard; a brother, Albert; and a sister, Alice Langone.

Mr. Libertini’s success as a performer is all the more noteworthy in that he never set out to be an actor.

“During the early part of my career, I mostly did stuff I helped to originate,” he told The Times in 1982. “I was secretly afraid of acting someone else’s words, afraid I would bump into the furniture, or not know where to stand.”

Selected filmography

    The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) - Pockets

    Don't Drink the Water (1969) - Father Drobney

    The Out-of-Towners (1970) - Baggage Man - Boston

    Catch-22 (1970) - Brother John

    Lady Liberty (1971) - Tim (uncredited)

    I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? (1975) - Cafe Waiter / Jack Kirsten

    Fire Sale (1977) - Painter

    Days of Heaven (1978) - Vaudeville Leader

    The In-Laws (1979) - Gen. Garcia

    Popeye (1980) - Geezil

    Sharky's Machine (1981) - Nosh

    Soup for One (1982) - Angelo

    Best Friends (1982) - Jorge Medina

    Going Berserk (1983) - Rev. Sun Yi Day

    Deal of the Century (1983) - Masaggi

    Unfaithfully Yours (1984) - Giuseppe

    All of Me (1984) - Prahka Lasa

    Fletch (1985) - Frank Walker

    Big Trouble (1986) - Dr. Lopez

    Betrayed (1988) - Sam Kraus

    Fletch Lives (1989) - Frank Walker

    Animal Behavior (1989) - Doctor Parrish

    The Lemon Sisters (1989) - Nicholas Panas

    DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) - Dijon (voice)

    Awakenings (1990) - Sidney

    The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) - Ed Rifkin

    Nell (1994) - Alexander Paley

    Cultivating Charlie (1994) - Glosser

    Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) - Rabbi Gelb (uncredited)

    Telling You (1998) - Mr. P

    The 4th Tenor (2002) - Vincenzo

    Grilled (2006) - Rabbi Silver

    Everybody Wants to Be Italian (2007) - Papa Aldo Tempesti

    A Grandpa for Christmas (2007) - Karl Sugarman

    Dolphin Tale (2011) - Fisherman

    How to Become an Outlaw (2014) - Judge