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John Forsythe: 'Dynasty' and 'Charlie's Angels' star passes away at 92
In Santa Ynez, California, on Thursday, talented actor John Forsythe, who played Blake Carrington in the hit 1980s soap and provided the voice of the mysterious Charles Townsend in TV crime series Charlie's Angels, died of complications from pneumonia.
John Forsythe was born in New Jersey, and started out as a baseball announcer and drama teacher. He began his acting career on Broadway and signed a deal with Warner Bros. just before World War Two.
Forsythe enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
He co-founded the Actors Studio after the war, where his students included a young Joan Collins - who was to become his Dynasty co-star - and appeared in a series of TV plays.
He was among the most in-demand TV and radio thespians by the mid-1950s, and landed a big deal in 1957 when he signed up to play Bentley Gregg in hit show Bachelor Father.
John Forsythe continued making appearances in top-rated TV theatre projects and was given his own show, The John Forysthe Show, in the mid-1960s. He also landed a long run in To Rome With Love.
However, his heyday as a TV icon was yet to come - he voiced Charlie in Charlie's Angels on television from 1976 to 1981 and then became the star of soap phenomenon Dynasty throughout the 1980s after George Peppard quit as Blake Carrington.
Imdb.com says, he was the only actor to appear in all 220 episodes of Dynasty.
John Forsythe had one more successful TV run in the early 1990s as Senator William Franklin Powers in The Powers That Be. He returned to the spotlight at the beginning of the new century to reprise his Charlie voice in the Charlie's Angels movie and sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.
The actor spent the last four years of his life battling cancer. His family has asked that fans donate cash to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers.
To mark his passing, flowers will be placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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