According to TMZ.com via the New York Times, actor Charles Kimbrough, best known as the curmudgeonly TV anchorman on TV's classic sitcom Murphy Brown has died. He was 86.
Kimbrough's son John confirmed the news to the New York Times, explaining his father had passed on Jan. 11 in Culver City, CA. No other details of his demise were released.
As TMZ.com continued to report, the actor starred in Murphy Brown for all 10 seasons, during which he received an Emmy nomination for playing Dial. Kimbrough returned to the part for a few episodes in the failed 2018 reboot of the series.
Before television, Kimbrough found steady work in the live theatre, having starred in lots of Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including Stephen Sondheim's Company.
"Prior to his big break on Murphy," TMZ.com went on to document, "Kimbrough had guest starred in a number of other hit TV series like Kojak, All My Children, American Playhouse, Spenser: For Hire, Another World, Hothouse and more. He also acted in several movies in the '70s and '80s."
It wasn't until the 1990s that Kimbrough displayed a new ability: voiceover work. He offered his poise to popular children's shows such as Dinosaurs, Pinky and the Brain, Hercules, The Angry Beavers, Batman Beyond, and more.
Kimbrough most "famously voiced one of the gargoyles in 1996's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, playing Victor. He reprised this character for both the sequel and video game spinoffs," TMZ.concluded.
Meanwhile, for many viewers, Murphy Brown was considered to be a later-day replica of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. As Moore, herself once said, "They steal from my show all the time."
For example, the Jim Dial character was very similar to the Ted Baxter role played by Ted Knight in the Moore series.
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