Robert Swan, The Untouchables and Hoosiers actor, dies at 78
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Robert Swan, the veteran character actor known for roles in Hoosiers, The Untouchables, and Natural Born Killers, has died at 78.
His death comes after a long battle with cancer, his friend Betty Hoeffner confirmed in a Facebook post. She wrote that Swan died Wednesday morning, peacefully in his sleep at home in Rolling Prairie, Ind.
She notes that Swan was in the process of shopping his screenplay The Saint and the Scoundrel, which follows the life of Samuel Johnson, an English lexicographer who suffered from Tourette syndrome and eventually published A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. A celebration of his life, featuring a reading of the screenplay with Daniel J. Travanti and Si Osborne, will be announced at a later date.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Robert Swan in "Hoosiers"
Born in Chicago on Oct. 10, 1944, Swan landed his first feature film role in Somewhere in Time, the 1980 sci-fi romance starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. He later became well known for playing roles in a number of sports films.
In Hoosiers, he was the father of two young basketball players and one of the few people to welcome Gene Hackman's Normal Dale, the new coach with a spotty record. Swan followed that up with a role in The Babe, the Babe Ruth biopic starring John Goodman, before reuniting with Hoosiers director David Anspaugh for Rudy, another sports biopic that followed the life of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger.
Other notable credits include Brian De Palma's The Untouchables and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. On television, he shared the screen with Jane Fonda in the 1984 ABC telefilm The Dollmaker, and later appeared on All My Children. He also appeared in Backdraft, Heart of Steel, The Twilight Zone, Who's That Girl, Missing Persons, and The Owner. Elsewhere, Swan made a name for himself onstage in the local Chicago theater scene, and founded the Harbor Country Opera, a Michigan-based opera house.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
