‘Die Hard’ actor, UNLV professor Clarence Gilyard dies
Clarence Gilyard, a movie and tv star who cherished his function as a theater professor at UNLV, has died. He was 66 years previous. UNLV’s College of Fine Arts introduced Gilyard’s dying in a press launch Monday afternoon.
Gilyard had suffered from an extended sickness. No additional particulars but.
Gilyard has been a professor within the UNLV Department of Film since 2006. By then, he was an achieved tv, movie and theater skilled for greater than 30 years.
Gilyard was well-known for his function as laptop terror knowledgeable Theo within the 1988 thriller Die Hard. For 13 years, he was on prime-time community tv in “Matlock,” portraying Andy Griffith’s non-public investigator Conrad McMasters; then as Jimmy Trivette in “Walker, Texas Ranger”, reverse Chuck Norris.
Gilyard had really put his profession on maintain for a time to concentrate on instructing at UNLV.
“My manager-agent is not happy that I’m not working, but university is just a lot of fun. And once you start a semester and meet those students, it’s like doing a TV series,” Gilyard mentioned in 2010. “You’re connected to them. How can you leave them once you see in their eyes that they depend on you? They have aspirations for their growth for those 15 weeks.”
UNLV College of Fine Arts Dean Nancy Uscher mentioned she felt “deep sadness” when saying Gilyard’s dying.
“His college students have been deeply impressed by him, as have been all who knew him. He had many extraordinary skills and was extraordinarily well-known on the college by his dedication to instructing and his skilled achievements,” Uscher said in a statement. “His generosity of spirit was boundless – he was all the time keen to contribute to initiatives and reveals each time attainable.”
UNLV movie chair Heather Addison mentioned, “Every time we asked him how he was, he would happily declare that he was ‘blessed!’ But we are truly the ones who have been blessed to be his colleagues and students for so many years.”
Gilyard reprized his function as Theo for a two-minute Die Hard drum business that aired throughout Super Bowl LV in February 2o21.
The challenge reunited Gilyard and “Die Hard” co-star Bruce Willis as New York City police detective John McClane. Gilyard even thought-about rebooting the “Die Hard” franchise.
“When I got involved again, I thought, ‘This, I have to do it,'” he mentioned in December 2020. “The scale, the toys, the focus, the collaboration all feel like a return to mainstream Hollywood.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs each day in Section A. His “PodKats”! podcast might be discovered at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at [email protected] Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
