'Babylon 5' Star Jerry Doyle Dies

'Babylon 5' Star Jerry Doyle Dies at 60

Jerry Doyle

After 'Babylon 5,' the actor ventured into talk radio.

Jerry Doyle, best known for his role as security chief Michael Garibaldi on the sci-fi series Babylon 5, has died, his family announced Thursday. He was 60.

The actor was found in his Las Vegas home Wednesday, and the cause of death was not immediately known.

Doyle appeared on 109 episodes of Babylon 5 from 1994-1998, and was wed to costar Andrea Thompson from 1995-1997. In recent years, he ventured into talk radio, hosting the political talk program The Jerry Doyle Show. He was also the founder of the political site EpicTimes.



Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski penned a tribute for his former star, joking that while they disagreed on politics (Jerry "was just to the right of Attila the Hun"), Straczynski donated to Doyle's campaign when he ran for Congress in 2000.

"Not because I agreed with him, but because I respected him; because there was one area in which we agreed: the vital intersection between the arts of acting and storytelling. In that respect, Jerry was a consummate professional," wrote Straczynski. "He was funny, and dangerous, and loyal, and a prankster, and a pain in the ass; he was gentle and cynical and hardened and insightful and sometimes as dense as a picket fence...and his passing is a profound loss to everyone who knew him, especially those of us who fought beside him in the trenches of Babylon 5."

Doyle was born in 1956 in Brooklyn, New York to a police officer father and a homemaker mother. In a 2002 interview with IGN, he said he once considered going into law enforcement, like hs father. Asked to describe his lucky break, he recalled auditioning for Babylon 5's pilot in 1992.

"They had seen, you know, 350,000 people and they had 4 or 5 people that they could go with, but there was something that they were still looking for in the character. I got there, and they were harried and pissed off that the day wasn't going well, and the equipment broke down to film the auditions, blah, blah, blah," recalled Doyle. "Finally, I remember the writer-producer turned to me, 'What role are you here for?' I go, 'The one I'm going to get.' And he said, 'Garibaldi,' that was the character's name. I said, 'That's Mr. Garibaldi to you,' which was the character that he envisioned; the kind of cynical, jaded, not political, not subtle, best friend, worst enemy kind of a scenario."

In addition to Babylon 5, Doyle also had small roles on JAG, NYPD Blue and Beverly Hills: 90210.




source: hollywoodreporter