California

Jon Polito, Star of ‘The Big Lebowski' and ‘Barton Fink' Dead At 65

The prolific, raspy-voiced character actor died Thursday at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, Calif.

Jon Polito, the prolific and raspy-voiced character actor whose many credits ranged from "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Modern Family" to the Coen Brother films "Barton Fink" and "The Big Lebowski," has died.

Polito died Thursday at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California, according to his manager, Maryellen Mulcahy. Polito was 65 and was being treated for multiple melanoma, Mulcahy told The Associated Press on Friday.

A native of Philadelphia, the short, mustachioed Polito was among the busiest TV and movie actors of the past three decades, averaging several projects a year since the mid-1980s. Mulcahy said he was working right to the end of his life.

He played a private investigator in "The Big Lebowski." 

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