Jason Wingreen

Performer, writer
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Jason Wingreen

Performer, writer

October 9, 1920

Brooklyn, New York

December 25, 2015

Jason Wingreen was an actor best known for his role as Harry the bartender on the classic CBS sitcom All in the Family and the spinoff Archie Bunker’s Place. He also provided the voice of Boba Fett in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Wingreen portrayed the sympathetic barkeep on the Norman Lear sitcoms for 117 episodes between the two series, both starring Carroll O’Connor. For 1980’s Star Wars, Wingreen auditioned for the role of Yoda, but was ultimately given the role of Boba, a bounty hunter who captures Han Solo (Harrison Ford).

Wingreen was a prolific performer, with nearly 200 credits to his name on IMDb. He appeared in dozens of classic television shows, including roles on General Hospital, The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Get Smart, The Fugitive, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Columbo, Gunsmoke, Mod Squad, Bonanza, The Partridge Family, Shaft, The New Perry Mason, Barnaby Jones, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Waltons, Happy Days, McMillan & Wife, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Charlie’s Angels, Fantasy Island, Hill Street Blues, Highway to Heaven, Matlock and Seinfeld.

He also had several recurring roles, including parts on the series The Untouchables, as a Chicago police captain; on Matlock, as Judge Arthur Beaumont; and on The Fugitive, The FBI and Ironside, playing several different roles for each series.

Additionally, he wrote episodes for a handful of TV series, including Thriller, The Gallant Man, 77 Sunset Strip, The Greatest Show on Earth and The Wild Wild West.

He also appeared in the films The True Story of Jesse James, starring Robert Wagner; Everything’s Ducky, with Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett; The Slender Thread, with Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft; The Cheyenne Social Club, with Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda; Hustle, with Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve; and the 1980 screwball comedy Airplane!

Wingreen took his first acting class while attending Brooklyn College. He later served in World War II, and became one of the founders of the Circle in the Square theater company in New York’s Greenwich Village. In 1954, he appeared on Broadway for the first time, in the plays The Girl on the Via Flaminia and Fragile Fox. The actor gained his first screen credit the following year, performing in an episode of Armstrong Circle Theatre.

Wingreen died December 25, 2015, in Los Angeles. He was 95.

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