Bill Starr Dies: ‘Goodfellas’ & ‘Halloween’ Franchise Actor Was 81
Beau Starr, the actor who appeared in Goodfellas (1990) and multiple Halloween films, has died. He was 81.
Praising him as “very uniqie and special,” the actor’s brother Mike Starr announced that Beau died peacefully of natural causes on Friday in Vancouver, Canada, according to TMZ.
Born Sept. 1, 1944 in Queens, New York, Beau Starr was a professional baseball player on the New York Jets’ practice squad from 1966 to ’68, before moving on to the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
In 1979, Starr made his onscreen debut in the sketch comedy show Bizarre, going on to episodes of TJ Hooker, Cagney & Lacey, Three’s Company, Knight Rider, Remington Steele, The A-Team, MacGyver, The Fall Guy, Moonlighting, Night Court, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Wings, NYPD Blue, The Dead Zone, Psych and more.
He also starred in the short-lived NBC crime drama True Blue (1989-’90) as Lt. Bill Triplett, in addition to playing Lt. Harding Welsh in the CTV crime comedy Due South from 1994 to ’99.
Starr’s movie credits include the role of Sheriff Ben Meeker in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), as well as appearances in Fletch (1985), Goodfellas (1990), Speed (1994), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Cinderella Man (2005) and more.
