Robert Swan, 'Hoosiers' and 'Rudy' Actor, Dead at 78
Robert Swan, a character actor who appeared in everything from sports films to crime flicks to firefighter dramas, has died. He was 78.
His friend Betty Hoeffner confirmed his passing to The Hollywood Reporter, sharing that he died at his own home in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, following a lengthy cancer battle.
Swan was born in Chicago in 1944 and grew up singing at the Church of St. Paul & the Redeemer and in the chorus at the Lyric Opera and Chicago Symphony. He acted in local theaters and made his Broadway debut in 1974's The Freedom of the City, five years before his first filmed project: an episode of The Duke in 1979.
You may recognize Swan from his series of roles in classic sports films, such as Indiana farmer Rollin Butcher in Hoosiers, as a priest in Rudy, or as Babe Ruth's father in The Babe.
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He portrayed a deputy in Natural Born Killers, in line with his other law enforcement roles in Who’s That Girl and Mo’ Money, and a bartender in Backdraft.
He was also seen alongside Jane Fonda in the 1984 TV film The Dollmaker, appeared in episodes of All My Children, Spenser for Hire, and The Equalizer, and voiced commercials for United Airlines, Busch and Schlitz beer, and Nine Lives cat food, among others.
His final project was 2012's The Owner.
He is survived by wife Barbara, brothers David and Charles, sister-in-law Elizabeth, nephews Christopher, Bryan and Daniel, and his two pups: Baci and Chico.
A celebration of life has not been scheduled, but it will feature a reading of the screenplay The Saint and the Scoundrel, which Swan authored and was shopping around at the time of his death. He dreamed of portraying the role of the narrator in the script about English lexicographer Samuel Johnson.
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