Charles Kimbrough, star on the sitcom Murphy Brown, has died

According to Charles Kimbrough’s son, John Kimbrough, who spoke with The New York Times, his father passed away on January 11. Charles Kimbrough was best known to fans of television for his role as the straight-laced anchorman Jim Dial on the show “Murphy Brown.” He was 86.

There was no indication of what caused the death.

The actor, who was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, kicked off his theatrical career in the late 1960s as a member of the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. There, he and his wife of thirty years, Mary Jane Wilson, participated in performances of “Cat Among the Pigeons” and “The White House Murder Case.”

Soon after that, in 1971, he had a role in the musical “Company” by Stephen Sondheim, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in the category of best featured actor. For this performance, he received the nomination. In 1984, he was a member of the original Broadway cast that performed in “Sunday in the Park With George,” which was another smash written by Stephen Sondheim. Ten years later, he played the lead role in the first Off-Broadway production of the A.R. Gurney comedy “Sylvia,” which is about an adopted dog and the couple who takes her in. When Kimbrough performed in the 2012 Broadway production of “Harvey,” the narrative of a man whose best friend is a six-foot rabbit, the character of Harvey was at the centre of the man’s universe once again. “Harvey” is the story of a man.

Even though he continued to perform on stage and in front of cameras, making appearances on programmes like “Kojak,” “Tales of the Unexpected,” “Spencer: For Hire,” and even a brief stint on the daytime soap opera “Another World,” it was his 1988 casting as the staid veteran network reporter and anchorman Jim Dial on the CBS sitcom “Murphy Brown” that made him famous. Additionally, it led to him being nominated for an Emmy in 1990 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

His voice may be recognisable to moviegoers as that of the gargoyle Victor in the animated picture “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” from 1996.

Kimbrough wed actress Beth Howland in 1991. Howland was well remembered for playing the frazzled waitress Vera on the Linda Lavin sitcom “Alice” in the 1970s. She passed away from lung cancer in 2016.