John Forsythe, the baritone-voiced actor who made an impression in two hit television series, has passed away yesterday in Santa Ynez, CA. He was 92. As both the disembodied voice of Charlie assigning his sexy employees their assignments on Charlie’s Angels and as the scheming patriarch on Dynasty, Forsythe created characters that found themselves thrust into the cultural zeitgeist.
Although a majority of his career was spent in television, Forsythe made several notable film appearances. His first major starring film role was in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 dark comedy The Trouble With Harry as an artist who helps the residents of a small Vermont village hide a dead body that they discover in the woods. As the film was a bit of a departure of Hitchcock, it did not fare well at the box office, hurting Forsythe’s chances of landing another leading role for a while.
In 1964, Forsythe landed the lead in the teens-gone-wild exploitation flick Kitten With A Whip as a man whose act of kindness towards a runaway girl leads to being terrorized by her delinquent friends. He also appeared in the adaptation of Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood and the legal system satire … And Justice For All. For the 2000 and 2003 Charlie’s Angels films, Forsythe once again supplied the voice of the titular character.
