Richard Stahl

Who was Richard Stahl?

Richard Stahl was an American actor who mostly appeared in film and TV comedies.

Born in Detroit, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. In the 1950s, he was appearing in Off-Broadway productions, where he met his wife to be Kathryn Ish in 1959. In the 1960s, he relocated to San Francisco and became a member of an improvisational comedy group, The Committee.

Some of Stahl's best known film credits include Five Easy Pieces, High Anxiety, 9 to 5 and Ghosts of Mississippi. He also appeared in many TV situation comedies such as All in the Family, Laverne & Shirley, The Partridge Family, The Odd Couple, Married With Children, Empty Nest, Newhart, The Facts of Life, Love American Style, Barney Miller, WKRP in Cincinnati, The Golden Girls, Soap and Night Court. In the 1980s he was also a regular on the sitcom It's a Living, and starred in his own short-lived comedy series Turnabout.

Stahl died aged 74 at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Health Center in Los Angeles, after a 10 year struggle against Parkinson's disease.

Stahl's wife, actress Kathryn Ish, died of cancer in Santa Barbara, California, on December 31, 2007.