Joe Marinelli, a famend character actor greatest recognized for his work on The Morning Present and cleaning soap operas Normal Hospital and Santa Barbara, handed away on June 22. He was 68. Marinelli’s dying was confirmed by his spouse, Jean, to The Hollywood Reporter. In line with Marinelli’s agent, he was identified with abdomen and throat most cancers a number of years in the past and had been dwelling with the illness.

Marinelli acquired his begin on episodic tv, guest-starring on standard sequence like Cagney and Lacey, Hill Avenue Blues, and L.A. Regulation. L.A. Regulation producer Jill Farren Phelps was so impressed by the actor that she recruited him to play cross-dressing mafioso Bunny Tagliatti on Santa Barbara.

“One factor I discovered is that pants are much more comfy than nylons,” Marinelli stated of taking part in Tagliatti in 2013. “I additionally discovered that different folks thought I used to be very brave. Whereas getting my make-up placed on at some point, a girl’s voice whispered in my ear, ‘You have to be very comfy in your sexuality.’ Once I turned, they have been gone. Nonetheless, that caught with me.”

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Later in his profession, Marinelli appeared on E.R., The West Wing, Parenthood, Determined Housewives, Brokers of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Ray Donovan, in addition to the soaps Normal Hospital and Guiding Gentle. On The Morning Present, he performed the fictional breakfast program’s director, Don Spagnoli, on 22 episodes of Apple’s sequence. He additionally had a small position in Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated highway comedy Sideways, taking part in a wine porter.

“I actually cherished him and what he stood for,” Marinelli’s Morning Present co-star, Mark Duplass, informed THR in a press release. “We didn’t spend 10,000 hours collectively, however we have been spiritually aligned in some ways.”

Sideways director Alexander Payne additionally penned a heartfelt memoriam to the actor. “The nice Joe Marinelli acted in my very first film at movie college 40 years in the past and once more in Sideways,” he wrote. “Other than being a rare artist, he was a uniquely magnificent human being with a coronary heart as large because the ocean.”

Marinelli is survived by his spouse of 34 years and their two sons, Vincent and David.

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