Charles John Hallahan was an American film, television and stage actor best known for his performances in Going in Style

Going in Style

Going in Style is a 1979 caper film written and directed by Martin Brest. It stars George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasberg and Charles Hallahan. The casino scenes were shot at the Aladdin Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.- Plot synopsis :...

, The Thing, and Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak is a 1997 disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton and Charles Hallahan. The film portrays the effect of a volcano erupting near a small town in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The film is loosely...

.

Life and career

Hallahan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 and graduated from Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

, then going on to Temple University

Temple University

Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...

 to earn a Master's degree

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 in fine arts. During his acting career he was often cast as a police officer

Police officer

A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

, and is possibly best known to TV viewers as LAPD Captain Charlie Devane on Hunter. He was memorable for his portrayal of the nameless "Coach" in Vision Quest

Vision Quest

Vision Quest is a 1985 coming of age drama film starring Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino, and Ronny Cox. It is based on Terry Davis' novel of the same name. In some countries, it was released as Crazy for You to market on Madonna's emerging fame and the popularity of the song...

, opposite Matthew Modine

Matthew Modine

Matthew Avery Modine is an award-winning American actor. His film roles include Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the title character in Alan Parker's Birdy, high school wrestler Louden Swain in Vision Quest, football star turned spy Alec McCall in Funky Monkey and the...

. He also served in the US Navy in the early 1960s, including time as a Navy hospital corpsmen stationed in Puerto Rico.

His two most famous film roles, arguably, were as the doomed geologist Vance Norris in John Carpenter's The Thing and as the also-doomed vulcanologist Dr. Paul Dreyfus in Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak is a 1997 disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton and Charles Hallahan. The film portrays the effect of a volcano erupting near a small town in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The film is loosely...

.

Hallahan also co-starred as a regular cast member in two popular television series, Grace Under Fire and the long-running The Paper Chase

The Paper Chase (TV series)

The Paper Chase is a television series based on a 1970 novel by John Jay Osborn, Jr., as well as a 1973 film based on the novel. It follows the lives of law student James T. Hart and his classmates at Harvard Law School.-Production:...

. He has a brother, Kenneth Hallahan, who is a Roman Catholic priest in New Jersey.

Death

In 1997, Hallahan was cast as Liam Bilby in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...

episode "Honor Among Thieves", but on November 25, 1997, he was involved in an auto accident caused by a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 while driving, and died. Nick Tate

Nick Tate

Nicholas John "Nick" Tate is an Australian actor best known for his role as Eagle pilot Alan Carter in both seasons of the 1970s science fiction television series Space: 1999, as well as for playing the role of Gordon Hamilton's errant brother James in the 1980's soap opera "Sons and...

 agreed to assume the role in Hallahan's memory.

Hallahan is buried in Cobh

Cobh

Cobh is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour. Facing the town are Spike Island and Haulbowline Island...

 Harbor in the south of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

.

See also

• Back Stage West Garland Awards
  Back Stage West Garland Awards
  The Back Stage Garland Awards — also referred to simply as the Garland Awards, and known as the Back Stage West Garland Awards from 1998 to 2008 — are bestowed by the entertainment-industry newspaper Back Stage, honoring excellence in Southern California theatre...
  
  , first annual awards dedicated honor to Hallahan

Selected filmography

• Nightwing
  Nightwing (film)
  Nightwing is a 1979 American horror film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay by Martin Cruz Smith, Steve Shagan, and Bud Shrake is based on the 1977 novel of the same title by Smith...
  
  (1979)
• Going in Style
  Going in Style
  Going in Style is a 1979 caper film written and directed by Martin Brest. It stars George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasberg and Charles Hallahan. The casino scenes were shot at the Aladdin Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.- Plot synopsis :...
  
  (1979)
• Hide in Plain Sight (1980)
• The Thing (1982)
• Twilight Zone: The Movie
  Twilight Zone: The Movie
  Twilight Zone: The Movie is a 1983 science fiction horror film produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis as a theatrical version of The Twilight Zone, a 1959 and '60s TV series created by Rod Serling. Those starring in the film are: Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow, Scatman Crothers,...
  
  (1983)
• The Star Chamber
  The Star Chamber
  The Star Chamber is a 1983 American thriller film written by Roderick Taylor and directed by Peter Hyams. It stars Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook...
  
  (1983)
• Silkwood
  Silkwood
  Silkwood is a 1983 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen was inspired by the true-life story of Karen Silkwood, who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant where she...
  
  (1983)
• Two of a Kind
  Two of a Kind (1983 film)
  Two of a Kind is a 1983 American romantic comedy film directed by John Herzfeld and starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The original music score was composed by Patrick Williams. The film has Travolta as an inventor and Newton-John as a bank teller. It is up to both criminally-minded...
  
  (1983)
• Kidco
  Kidco
  Kidco is a 1984 comedy film directed by Ronald F. Maxwell and starring Scott Schwartz, Marty Van Hoe, Mahlon Richmond, Clifton James, and Vincent Schiavelli.-Plot summary:...
  
  (1984)
• Terror in the Aisles
  Terror in the Aisles
  Terror in the Aisles is a 1984 documentary film about horror films featuring clips from Friday the 13th I and/or II, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween I and II, Jaws 1 and 2, Alien, John Carpenter's The Thing, The Shining and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and The Birds. The film is hosted by...
  
  (1984)
• Vision Quest
  Vision Quest
  Vision Quest is a 1985 coming of age drama film starring Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino, and Ronny Cox. It is based on Terry Davis' novel of the same name. In some countries, it was released as Crazy for You to market on Madonna's emerging fame and the popularity of the song...
  
  (1985)
• Pale Rider
  Pale Rider
  Pale Rider is a 1985 American western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the lead role. This movie has plot similarities to the classic Western Shane , including in its final scene, as well as previous Eastwood films featuring his Man with No Name character and his 1973...
  
  (1985)
• P.K. and the Kid (1987)
• Fatal Beauty
  Fatal Beauty
  Fatal Beauty is a 1987 American action film starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sam Elliott, directed by Tom Holland. The screenplay was written by Hilary Henkin and Dean Riesner. The original music score was composed by Harold Faltermeyer, of Top Gun fame. The film was marketed with the tagline "An...
  
  (1987)
• True Believer
  True Believer (1989 film)
  True Believer is a 1989 courtroom drama directed by Joseph Ruben and released by Columbia Pictures.-Synopsis:The film stars James Woods as burnt-out attorney Eddie Dodd, who has left behind civil rights work to defend drug dealers. Robert Downey Jr...
  
  (1989)
• Cast a Deadly Spell
  Cast a Deadly Spell
  Cast a Deadly Spell is a Horror/Detective HBO movie with Fred Ward, Julianne Moore, David Warner and Clancy Brown. It was directed by Martin Campbell and written by Joseph Dougherty.-Plot:...
  
  (1991)
• Body of Evidence (1993)
• Warlock: The Armageddon
  Warlock: The Armageddon
  Warlock: The Armageddon, is a 1993 American horror film directed by Anthony Hickox, and produced by Peter Abrams. It is considered a sequel in-title-only to the 1989 film Warlock, and it stars Julian Sands returning in the title role....
  
  (1993)
• Roswell (1994)
• Dave
  Dave (film)
  Dave is a 1993 comedy-drama film written by Gary Ross, directed by Ivan Reitman, and starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. Co-stars include Frank Langella, Kevin Dunn, Ving Rhames, and Ben Kingsley. Ross was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay...
  
  (1995)
• Executive Decision
  Executive Decision
  Executive Decision is a 1996 action film, directed by Stuart Baird and starring Kurt Russell, Halle Berry and Steven Seagal. The original music was composed by Jerry Goldsmith...
  
  (1996)
• The Fan
  The Fan (1996 film)
  The Fan is a 1996 American thriller film starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes. It was directed by Tony Scott and based on the novel of the same name by Peter Abrahams...
  
  (1996)
• The Rich Man's Wife
  The Rich Man's Wife
  The Rich Man's Wife is a 1996 American thriller film written and directed by Amy Holden Jones. The title character becomes a suspect when her husband is murdered and the investigating detectives are suspicious of her alibi.-Plot:...
  
  (1996)
• Dante's Peak
  Dante's Peak
  Dante's Peak is a 1997 disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton and Charles Hallahan. The film portrays the effect of a volcano erupting near a small town in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The film is loosely...
  
  (1997)
• The Pest (1997)
• Ambushed (1998)

Television

• The Rockford Files
  The Rockford Files
  The Rockford Files is an American television drama series which aired on the NBC network between September 13, 1974 and January 10, 1980. It has remained in regular syndication to the present day. The show stars James Garner as Los Angeles-based private investigator Jim Rockford and features Noah...
  
  
• Happy Days
  Happy Days
  Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
  
  
• Hawaii Five-O
  Hawaii Five-O
  Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett,...
  
  
• All in the Family
  All in the Family
  All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
  
  
• Dallas
  Dallas (TV series)
  Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
  
  
• Soap
  Soap (TV series)
  Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.The show was created as a parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format and included melodramatic plot elements such...
  
  
• The Paper Chase
  The Paper Chase (TV series)
  The Paper Chase is a television series based on a 1970 novel by John Jay Osborn, Jr., as well as a 1973 film based on the novel. It follows the lives of law student James T. Hart and his classmates at Harvard Law School.-Production:...
  
  
• Good Times
  Good Times
  Good Times is an American sitcom that originally aired from February 8, 1974, until August 1, 1979, on the CBS television network. It was created by Eric Monte and Michael Evans, and developed by Norman Lear, the series' primary executive producer...
  
  
• The Waltons
  The Waltons
  The Waltons is an American television series created by Earl Hamner, Jr., based on his book Spencer's Mountain, and a 1963 film of the same name. The show centered on a family growing up in a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and World War II. The series pilot was a television...
  
  
• Hart to Hart
  Hart to Hart
  Hart to Hart is an American television series, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a wealthy couple who also moonlighted as amateur detectives. The series was created by writer Sidney Sheldon and produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg...
  
  
• Trapper John, M.D.
  Trapper John, M.D.
  Trapper John, M.D. is an American television medical drama and spin-off of the film MASH, concerning a lovable surgeon who became a mentor and father figure in San Francisco, California. The show ran on CBS from September 23, 1979, to September 4, 1986....
  
  
• M* A* S* H
• Hill Street Blues
  Hill Street Blues
  Hill Street Blues is an American serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. Chronicling the lives of the staff of a single police precinct in an unnamed American city, the show received critical acclaim and its production innovations ...
  
  
• Bret Maverick
  Bret Maverick
  Bret Maverick is an American Western series starring James Garner in the role that made him famous in the 1957 series Maverick: a professional poker player traveling alone year after year through the Old West from riverboat to saloon...
  
  
• Lou Grant
  Lou Grant (TV series)
  Lou Grant is an American television drama series starring Ed Asner in the titular role as a newspaper editor. Unusual in American television, this drama series was a spinoff from a sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Aired from 1977 to 1982, Lou Grant won 13 Emmy Awards, including "Outstanding Drama...
  
  
• Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected
• The Equalizer
  The Equalizer
  The Equalizer is an American television series that ran for four seasons, initially on CBS, between 1985 and 1989. It starred Edward Woodward as an aging New York vigilante with a mysterious past...
  
  
• Civil Wars
  Civil Wars (TV series)
  Civil Wars is an American legal drama that aired on ABC from November 1991 to March 1993. The series was produced by Steven Bochco, known for his work on NYPD Blue, L.A. Law, and Hill Street Blues.-Synopsis:...
  
  
• Wings
• Hunter
• Picket Fences
  Picket Fences
  Picket Fences is a 60-minute American television drama about the residents of the fictional town of Rome, Wisconsin, created and produced by David E. Kelley. The show initially ran from September 18, 1992, to June 26, 1996, on the CBS television network in the United States...
  
  
• In the Heat of the Night
  In the Heat of the Night (TV series)
  In the Heat of the Night is a television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995...
  
  
• Sirens
  Sirens (TV series)
  Sirens is an American crime drama series that aired on ABC in 1993, and then in syndication from 1994 to 1995.-Synopsis:Sirens focused on the work and lives of three rookie female Pittsburgh Police officers...
  
  
• Law & Order
  Law & Order
  Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
  
  
• Wild Palms
  Wild Palms
  Wild Palms is a six-hour mini-series, which first aired in May 1993 on the ABC network in the United States. Written by Bruce Wagner, who was also the executive producer, Wild Palms was a sci-fi drama about the dangers of brainwashing through technology and drugs...
  
  
• Roswell
  Roswell (TV series)
  Roswell is an American science fiction television series developed, produced, and co-written by Jason Katims. The series debuted on October 6, 1999 on The WB and moved to UPN for the third season. The last episode aired May 14, 2002...
  
  
• Grace Under Fire
• Mad About You
  Mad About You
  Mad About You is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 23, 1992 to May 24, 1999. The show starred Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a newly married couple in New York City. Reiser played Paul Buchman, a documentary film maker. Hunt played Jamie Stemple Buchman, a public relations specialist...
  
  
• Murder, She Wrote
  Murder, She Wrote
  Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...
  
  
• JAG
  JAG (TV series)
  JAG is an American adventure/legal drama television show that was produced by Belisarius Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television and, for the first season only, NBC Productions...
  
  
• Coach
  Coach (TV series)
  Coach is an American television sitcom that aired for nine seasons on ABC from 1989 to 1997. The series starred Craig T. Nelson as Hayden Fox, head coach of the fictional Division I-A college football team, the Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles...
  
  
• Gargoyles
  Gargoyles (TV series)
  Gargoyles is an American animated series created by Greg Weisman. It was produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. Gargoyles is known for its dark tone, complex story arcs and melodrama...
  
  
• Sisters
  Sisters (TV series)
  Sisters is a television drama which aired on NBC for six seasons, from 1991 to 1996. The series was created by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who also created the Showtime series Queer as Folk and wrote the acclaimed Emmy and Peabody Award winning drama An Early Frost, also for NBC...
  
  
• Almost Perfect
  Almost Perfect
  Almost Perfect is an American situation comedy that aired on the CBS television network from 1995 to 1996.-Synopsis:Almost Perfect starred Nancy Travis as Kim Cooper, a television writer on the hit show Blue Justice who had just been promoted to executive producer, and Kevin Kilner as her...
  
  
• Players
• NYPD Blue
  NYPD Blue
  NYPD Blue is an American television police drama set in New York City, exploring the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan...
  
  

External links

• Charles Hallahan at Find A Grave
  Find A Grave
  Find a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...