Peter Van Norden, 1950 – 2026

Stage, screen, and TV actor Peter Van Norden, 75, died on July 9. Van Norden was one of those actors who never became a star, but who worked steadily for more than 50 years. He appeared on Broadway in Romeo and Juliet, Saint Joan, The Inspector General, Macbeth, and Little Johnny Jones, also acting Off-Broadway and in regional companies. His big-screen vehicles included Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, The Best of Times, The Accused, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, and Gigli; and he was ubiquitous on TV (Three’s A Crowd, Silver Spoons, Matlock, L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Days of Our Lives, Cheers, Family Ties, Hill Street Blues, Newhart, Wings, Caroline in the City, and one of the 1993 Amy Fisher TV movie trilogy, the one starring Alyssa Milano). Playwright Steven Leigh Morris wrote that Van Norden “was as kind as he was generous. He was as fine an actor as he was a person” (you could say the same of me, but it wouldn’t be a compliment!).