Prolific character Peter Jason, who had more than 270 credits to his name, has passed away at the age of 80

Over the course of a career that stretched back to 1967, Peter Jason racked up more than 270 screen acting credits, turning in performances that inspired legendary filmmaker John Carpenter to name him “one of the great character actors in cinema” – and to cast him in seven different projects: Prince of Darkness, They Live, Body Bags, In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., and Ghosts of Mars. Sadly, Carpenter has now had to take to social media to break the news to his fans and followers that Jason has passed away at the age of 80. Carpenter wrote, “His first movie was Howard Hawks’ Rio Lobo. He was a dear friend and I’ll miss him terribly.“

It is true that the 1970 film Rio Lobo was Jason’s first theatrical feature, but he already had three years of TV acting to his name at that point, with credits on around ten different series and TV movies. His first credit was on the TV movie A Bell for Adano. Some of the many other credits he earned over the years came on the likes of Hawaii Five-O, Kung Fu, Gunsmoke, One Day at a Time, B.J. and the Bear, The Incredible Hulk, Nice Dreams, Butterfly, Mommie Dearest, Hart to Hart, Some Kind of Hero, Trick or Treats, Silver Spoons, Cagney & Lacey, Angel, The Karate Kid, Dreamscape, Oxford Blues, Amazing Stories, Remington Steele, The Golden Girls, Heartbreak Ridge, Webster, Alien Nation, The Hunt for Red October, Knots Landing, Arachnophobia, Marked for Death, Quantum Leap, A Different World, Herman’s Head, Roseanne, Married… with Children; Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; Coach, The Demolitionist, Congo, Mortal Kombat; Murder, She Wrote; The Glimmer Man, Dante’s Peak; Mike Hammer, Private Eye; Batman Beyond: The Movie, Nash Bridges, Arli$$, Titus, JAG, Adaptation, Seabiscuit, Carnivàle, Surviving Christmas, Alien Apocalypse, Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, Castle, Cold Case, Justified, Chuck, CSI, Willow Creek; Hail, Caesar!; Longmire, NCIS, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Basically, if you’ve been watching TV or movies at any point in the last 58 years, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Peter Jason somewhere.

Another director who liked to cast Jason in as many projects as possible was Walter Hill. They worked together on The Driver, The Long Riders, 48 Hrs., Streets of Fire, Brewster’s Millions, Red Heat, Johnny Handsome, Wild Bill, an episode of Perversions of Science, Undisputed, and the first episode of Deadwood. Jason played the role of Con Stapleton on 26 episodes of Deadwood, and reprised the role for Deadwood: The Movie.

Deadline notes, “Born in Hollywood on July 22, 1944, Jason grew up in Newport Beach and would go on to study drama at Carnegie Mellon University. He is survived by wife Eileen and other family.“

Our heartfelt condolences go out to Peter Jason’s family, friends, and fans.