David Huddleston ✝

David William Huddleston (September 17, 1930 – August 2, 2016) was an American actor. An Emmy Award nominee, Huddleston had a prolific television career, and appeared in many films including: Rio Lobo, Blazing Saddles, Crime Busters, Santa Claus: The Movie, and The Big Lebowski. Huddleston was born in Vinton, Virginia, the son of Ismay Hope (née Dooley) and Lewis Melvin Huddleston. Huddleston attended Fork Union Military Academy for high school (Class of 1949) and is listed among the school's prominent alumni. He was briefly an officer in the United States Air Force before beginning his formal education in acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Known mainly as a character actor, Huddleston starred in the title role of 1985's big-budget film Santa Claus: The Movie, which featured a top-billed Dudley Moore as an elf. One of Huddleston's first roles came in the 1968 drama A Lovely Way to Die. Shortly afterward the actor became a frequent guest star on several of the leading television series of the 1960s and 1970s, among them, Adam-12, Then Came Bronson, Gunsmoke, Bewitched, Bonanza, Columbo, Cannon, McMillan & Wife, The Waltons, The Rookies, Medical Center, Kung Fu, Emergency!, Spencer's Pilots, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Police Woman, Hawaii Five-O, Walker, Texas Ranger, Charlie's Angels, Vega$, Sanford and Son, The Practice, and The Rockford Files. He appeared in many episodes of the TV series Petrocelli, as Lieutenant John Ponce during the series run from 1974 to 1976. He appeared in an unaired episode of the short-lived 1974 series The New Land and in the episode "The Nomads" from the 1977 series Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected (known in the United Kingdom as Twist in the Tale). He starred as J. T. Kallikak in the short-lived NBC situation comedy The Kallikaks later in 1977, and in 1979 he played the title role in the short-lived situation comedy Hizzonner as a small-town mayor. Among Huddleston's notable feature film credits prior to Santa Claus: The Movie are his co-starring roles in Blazing Saddles, McQ, The Klansman, Smokey and the Bandit II and Breakheart Pass.