Yahoo Sports Barry Newman, Vanishing Point and Petrocelli star, dies at 92
Barry Newman, the veteran actor known for playing a daring driver in the 1971 cult thriller Vanishing Point and the titular attorney on the NBC drama Petrocelli, died May 11 at 92.
His wife, Angela Newman, told the Hollywood Reporter that Newman died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "He was truly a light for so many, with an incredible, hilarious sense of humor that lit everything and everyone up," she added.
Born Nov. 7, 1930, in Boston, Newman attended Brandeis University, where he met Method acting innovator Lee Strasberg. After graduating and then serving in the Army, where he played clarinet and saxophone in the Army band, Newman moved to New York City to study acting under Strasberg. He made his Broadway debut as a jazz musician in Nature's Way, and later appeared in Maybe Tuesday and The Mousetrap.
Arthur Grimm/United Archives via Getty Barry Newman
Newman's big break came when he played defense attorney Anthony Petrocelli in the 1970 courtroom drama The Lawyer, which was loosely based on the Sam Sheppard murder case. Four years later Newman's character made the leap to the small screen for the TV movie Night Games and the subsequent series Petrocelli, which ran for two seasons. Newman earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his performance as the maverick lawyer.
In Vanishing Point, Newman memorably played Kowalski, a car transport driver white-knuckling through an existential cross-country trip. The film went on to become an admired cult classic, as Newman recalled in a 2019 interview with Paul Rowlands.
"When it opened in London at the Leicester Square Theatre, people lined up around the block to see it," Newman said. "In England I was a hero, and in America I was just a guy picking up his bags at the plane terminal. It opened again in America after playing Europe and people then started getting on to the film. It became a cult film without me even realizing it. To this day, I'm always being asked to talk about it somewhere."
Newman's other screen credits included the films Fear Is the Key, City on Fire, Daylight, and The Limey, and the TV series Murder She Wrote, The O.C., and NYPD Blue. He stepped back from acting in 2009, after being diagnosed with vocal cord cancer.
Related content:
