Clarence Gilyard, ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Matlock’ actor, dies at 66

Clarence Gilyard Jr., a famous helping actor whose credits consist of the blockbuster films “Die Hard” and “Top Gun” and the hit television series “Matlock” and “Walker, Texas Ranger,” has died at age 66.

His loss of life became introduced this week by means of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in which he taught degree and display appearing. Additional info were now not right now to be had Tuesday.

“Professor Gilyard became a beacon of mild and energy for all of us around him at UNLV,” the college’s movie chair, Heather Addison, stated in a announcement. “Whenever we asked him how he was, he would cheerfully declare that he was ‘Blessed!’ But we’re actually those who have been blessed to be his colleagues and students for so many years.”

Gilyard was a Moses Lake, Washington, native. He had a prolific career as an actor, beginning inside the Nineteen Eighties with appearances in “Diff’rent Strokes,” ”The Facts of Life” and other shows. He then seemed in two of the largest movies of the decade: “Top Gun,” wherein he played Sundown, a radar intercept officer, and “Die Hard,” while he become featured as a villainous laptop maven whose one liners blanketed “You didn’t carry me along for my charming personality.”In the Nineteen Nineties, he turned into at the side of law enforcement in “Matlock,” gambling opposite Andy Griffith, and “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which starred Chuck Norris. His different credits consist of “The Karate Kid: Part II,” a stage production of “Driving Miss Daisy” and an appearance alongside “Die Hard” celebrity Bruce Willis in a industrial for DieHard batteries.