Charles Dierkop, a prolific character actor who dozens of credits in the ‘60s and ‘70s alone (including appearances in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, The Sting, and as a series regular on Police Woman), has died. This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says Dierkop’s daughter confirmed that he died this weekend after a “recent heart attack and bout with pneumonia.” Dierkop was 87.
Born in Wisconsin in 1936, Dierkop dropped out of high school (where he was reportedly prone to getting in fights and got his nose broken multiple times) and joined the Marine Corps. as a teenager. After serving in Korea (after the Korean War), he returned to the U.S. and attended Philadelphia’s American Foundation Of Dramatic Arts. One of his first onscreen acting roles was an uncredited appearance in Paul Newman’s The Hustler, followed by multiple uncredited appearances on police drama Naked City in the early ‘60s.
Nearly a decade (and a bunch of one-off roles in stuff like Star Trek, Batman, and Adam-12) later, Dierkop reunited with Newman on Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid—the THR obit mentions that he got the role after his agent saw that there was a character named “Flat Nose Curry” in the script and he knew that Dierkop, with his distinctive nose, would be perfect. A few years after that, Dierkop worked with Newman and Butch Cassidy director George Roy Hill again on The Sting.
Dierkop’s other biggest role came in 1974, playing Pete Royster on Angie Dickinson’s groundbreaking cop show Police Woman—a series that did exactly what it said on the label, since it was about a policewoman, and it was one of American TV’s first hourlong dramas about a woman. The show ran for four seasons, and Dierkop appeared in 90 episodes over the course of its run.
Dierkop is survived by his daughter, Lynn.