Character actor Bruce French, best known for playing Father Lonigan in the NBC soap Passions, has died. He was 79.<\/p>\n
French passed away Friday in Los Angeles due to complications from Alzheimer\u2019s disease, his wife and Days of Our Lives vet Eileen Barnett told our sister site The Hollywood Reporter. TVLine has reached out for confirmation.<\/p>\n
The actor recurred as Father Lonigan, the blind priest who had premonitions of evil, in Passions during its nine-season run. The series debuted on NBC in 1999 and wrapped in August 2008 on DirecTV\u2019s 101 Network.<\/p>\n
During his decades-long career, French appeared in numerous other TV series, including three Star Trek series \u2014 The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise \u2014 Dallas, Falcon Crest, L.A. Law, Who\u2019s the Boss?, Beverly Hills, 90210, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Criminal Minds, Eli Stone and Crash. Between 2007 and 2008, he played Jim Burns in FX\u2019s The Riches, and he most recently appeared in NBC\u2019s Up All Night in 2012.<\/p>\n
On the film side, his credits included Mr. Deeds, Mission: Impossible III, Jurassic Park III, Fletch, Thank You for Smoking and Star Trek: Insurrection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Character actor Bruce French, best known for playing Father Lonigan in the NBC soap Passions, has died. He was 79. French passed away Friday in Los Angeles due to complications from Alzheimer\u2019s disease, his wife and Days of Our Lives vet Eileen Barnett told our sister site The Hollywood Reporter. TVLine has reached out for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memorial"],"yoast_head":"\n