Ron Silver has died, at 62, after a two year battle with esophageal cancer. The living image of the "New York actor", Silver, was something of a specialist in fast-talking, saturnine cynics, an association that became even greater after he won a Tony Award for his semi-legendary performance as a Hollywood shark in David Mamet's 1988 Broadway hit Speed-the-Plow. Silver's performances in the Mamet play and in David Rabe's 1984 Hurlyburly--neither of which, sadly, he got to repeat on film--cemented his image as the great white way's modern notion of a successful movie industry sleazeball. Ironically, he never became the star in movies that he was onstage, but he had a long and healthy career in TV and movies anyway. After a barely detectable film debut in the unfunny underground comedy Tunnel Vision (1977) and a recurring role alongside a fellow Broadway baby on 1980's The Stockard Channing Show, Silver began to develop a name for himself in movies with his rambunctiously funny performances in the romantic comedies Best Friends (1982), in which he played, yes, a Hollywood producer, and Lovesick (1983), in which his character, a Hollywood star returning to his New York stage roots, gave him the chance to mock Al Pacino.
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