Barry Newman – best known for his roles in Vanishing Point and Petrocelli

• The actor’s wife, Angela, confirmed his death in New York City on May 11
• He played Kowalski in the 1971 crime thriller by Richard C. Sarafian
• Newman has also been known for his role as defense attorney Anthony Petrocelli across several projects

Actor Barry Newman passed away at the age of 92 at NYU-Presbyterian Irving Medical Center in Columbia, New York.

The Boston-born artist, best known for his role as Kowalski in the 1971 crime thriller Vanishing Point, died on May 11, his wife, Angela, said. Hollywood Reporter Sunday.

Newman was cast in the Richard C. Sarafian film Vanishing Point after a stint on Broadway and in the 1970 film The Lawyer.

The film, which also stars Cleavon Little, Dean Jagger and Victoria Medlin, stars Newman as a Vietnam veteran/ex-chauffeur/cop who is dishonorably discharged given a job driving a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum from Denver to San Francisco. .

“This was very unique,” he said of the career-defining role, according to THR. I had just done this movie about a lawyer, a Harvard graduate, and I thought that was a different kind of thing. The man was the rebels, the heroes. I had so much fun doing that.

The film was shot over the course of eight weeks and is considered a cult classic, with acclaimed director Steven Spielberg among its biggest fans.

Newman is also known for his role as defense attorney Anthony Petrocelli in the 1970 film The Lawyer, which was based on the case of Cleveland surgeon Sam Sheppard, who was convicted and later acquitted of his wife’s murder, in a story that also inspired the Fugitive franchise.

Newman reprized his role of Petrocelli in the 1974 film Night Games and in the TV series Petrocelli, which ran 44 episodes over two seasons from September 1974 through March 1976.

Among his more notable projects later in his career included roles in The O.C. in 2005, in the 2002 comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights, in Sylvester Stallone’s 1996 action film Daylight and in the 1999 Eddie Murphy-Steve Martin comedy Bowfinger.

Other notable films he has appeared in include City on Fire (1979), King Crab (1980), Amy (1981), and Good Advice (2001), while he has starred in TV shows such as L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, and The Fall Guy. and cleaner.

He stopped working regularly after being diagnosed with vocal cord cancer in 2009, with his final project coming out with the 2022 independent film Finding Hannah.

Newman was born in Boston on November 7, 1930 and graduated from Boston Latin School and Brandeis University before pursuing a career in acting under acclaimed director Lee Strasberg.

In 1957 Newman began working on Broadway in Hermann Wouk’s play Nature’s Way, and later appeared in Mel Tolkien and Lucille Callen’s Maybe Tuesday the following year.

Other plays he appeared in included What Makes Sammy Run? Plus Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap and Pretty Boy Floyd.

He opened up about Vanishing Point’s popularity in a 2019 interview with Paul Rowlands, saying, “In England, I was a hero, and in America, I was just a guy picking up his bags at the plane stop!”

It opened again in America after playing Europe and people started watching the movie. It had become a cult movie without my realizing it. To this day, I am always asked to talk about it somewhere.