Nicholas Pryor Dies: Soap Veteran & ‘Risky Business’ Actor Who Recurred On ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ Was 89
Nicholas Pryor, whose nearly seven-decade acting career included hundreds of episodes of soap operas, playing Tom Cruise’s dad in Risky Business and Kathleen Robertson’s dad on Beverly Hills, 90210, died October 7. He was 89.
Fellow actor Jon Lindstrom announced the news on social media, saying in part: “Nick was an Actor’s actor, and an exceptional friend. … He was a mentor, a sounding board, a trusted confidant, and even a father-figure beyond, yes, playing my own father on #GH and #PortCharles.” See his full post below.
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Born Nicholas Probst on January 28, 1935, in Baltimore, Pryor racked up nearly 175 screen credits and half-dozen more on Broadway. After getting his screen start guesting on such 1950s and early ’60s TV series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Doctors, he played Tom Baxter in more than 75 episodes of the NBC daytime drama Another World. That led to a starring role on The Nurses, a 1965-67 continuation of CBS’ The Nurses, which had ended in 1965.
He then was cast in a starring role on the first season of CBS sudser Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and later had guest shots daytime soaps All My Children and The Edge of Night.
Pryor did some big-screen work in the mid-1970s including car-race romp The Gumball Rally along with TV miniseries at the height of their heyday, including The Adams Chronicles and Washington: Behind Closed Doors. He had a small but memorable role in the 1980 comedy classic Airplane! as Mr. Hammen, a soon-repentant eater of the fish plate, complete with airsickness bag and amplified hurling sound effect.
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By the early ’80s, Pryor was a regular TV guest star, appearing on such popular shows as M*A*S*H, Eight Is Enough, Little House on the Prairie, Silver Spoons, Falcon Crest, St. Elsewhere, Knight Rider Moonlighting and Who’s the Boss?
His first regular TV role came in NBC’s drama The Bronx Zoo, starring as a decent but often insufferable high school vice principal opposite his boss, Ed Asner, whose job he coveted. It lasted one season in 1987-88.
During that decade, Pryor continued to land film roles, including as Cruise’s dad in the future A-lister’s breakout 1983 pic Risky Business and in The Falcon and the Snowman, starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn.
Pryor continued to work steadily in film and TV during the 1990s, landing a recurring role as Chancellor Milton Arnold on Fox’s primetime hit Beverly Hills, 90210. He appeared in more than two dozen episodes from 1994-97. He also guested on many hit shows that decade, including Growing Pains; L.A. Law; Matlock; Chicago Hope; Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman; The Practice; Silk Stalkings; Diagnosis Murder; Party of Five; and Murder, She Wrote, among others.
In 1997, he was cast as Victor Collins on ABC’s General Hospital spinoff Port Charles — a role he would play in nearly 350 episodes through 2002.
After the turn of the century, Pryor appeared in guest roles on series such as NYPD Blue, That’s Life, Strong Medicine, Without a Trace, October Road, Hart of Dixie and Nashville. His final screen roles came in 2021, with Marvel’s Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the big-screen sequel Halloween Kills.
Pryor also appeared in several Broadway productions, including 1950s plays The Egghead, Love Me Little, The Highest Tree and Howie and later the ’70s shows That Championship Season and Thieves.
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