Nicolas Coster Dies: ‘Santa Barbara’, ‘All My Children’, ‘All The President’s Men’ Actor Was 89
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Nicolas Coster, the British-American actor who played an evasive lawyer in All the President’s Men (“I’m not here,” he insisted to Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward as the two sat in a courtroom), a fiendish kidnapper in All My Children, zany businessman Lionel Lockridge on Santa Barbara, and the father of Lisa Whelchel’s Blair Warner in The Facts of Life, died Monday at a hospital in Florida. He was 89.
His death was announced by his daughter Dinneen Coster on social media. “There is great sadness in my heart this evening, my father actor Nicolas Coster has passed on in Florida at 9:01 pm in the hospital,” Dinneen Coster wrote on Facebook. “Please be inspired by his artistic achievements and know he was a real actor’s actor!”
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A cause of death was not given.
A prolific actor whose career spanned decades on television and encompassed both leading and character roles, was born in London to a British mother and a New Zealand father. Raised mostly in California, Coster returned to England to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art then studied acting with Lee Strasberg in New York.
After a few early credited TV roles were in 1950s, Coster landed frequent, if small, roles throughout the ’60s on such series as No Time For Sergeants, Felony Squad, The Green Hornet and N.Y.P.D. In the ’70s he had roles in feature films such as All the President’s Men (1976) and 1776 (1972) but mostly focused on television, with guest roles on The Blue Knight, Charlie’s Angels, Little House on the Prairie, Baretta, Family, The Rockford Files, One Day at a Time, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk and Dallas.
His ’80s work included feature films Stir Crazy and Reds, and TV series Hart to Hart, Police Squad!, Simon & Simon, Knight Rider, L.A. Law, Thirtysomething, Matlock and many others.
His most recent credits included a 2021 episode of American Crime Story and the 2020 feature The Last Exorcist.
But Coster will likely be best remembered for his memorable performances, both long term and short term, on a raft of daytime soaps: Coster had regular or recurring roles on such series Another World, All My Children, As the World Turns, One Life to Live, Another World, and, perhaps most notably, Santa Barbara, in which he played the wealthy patriarch Lionel Lockridge on and off from 1984 to 1993, accumulating four Daytime Emmy nominations.
In 2017, he won his first Daytime Emmy in the Outstanding Supporting or Guest Actor category for his performance in The Bay.
Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
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