Earl Boen, the busy actor best known for his role as criminal psychologist Peter Silberman in the terminator movie franchise, died Thursday in Hawaii, his daughter said The Hollywood Reporter. He turned 81.
Ruby Harbin said her father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in November and died peacefully in his sleep.
Born on August 8, 1941, Boen amassed dozens of credits during his career. In 1984, he landed his most notable role as Dr. Silberman at James Cameron’s The terminator, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Biehn. He reprized the role Terminator 2: doomsday (1991) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003).
A memorable scene in the first terminator saw the interrogation of Biehn’s character Kyle Reese, a freedom fighter from the future who the psychologist said suffered from paranoid delusions. Nearly 40 years later, Biehn fondly recalled working with Boen on site.
“He was a great actor and he was always fun to hang out with,” Biehn said THRadding that Cameron “chose Earl because he was special.”
Boen’s other film credits include Battle beyond the stars, The man with two brains, Strange nation, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Last Insult, Sioux City, The companion, To be or not to be, Walk like a man and The prince.
As for television, he has performed in shows like The Golden Girls, Who is the boss?, Mom’s family, The Law and Harry McGraw, Webster, Matlock, Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Boy meets world.
After he retired from screen acting in 2003, he continued to work as a voice actor in radio, animated series and video games. Some of his credits in that arena include Mr. Bleakman Clifford the big red dogSenor Senior Sr. in Kim possibleLeChuck in the Monkey Island Stories video games and the narrator in some World of Warcraft video games.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his second wife, Cathy, and grandchildren Kimmy and Kimo. His first wife, Carole, died in 2001.
Aaron Couch contributed to this report.
