Matthew Cowles, known for his villainous turn as Billy Clyde Tuggle on the ABC soap opera All My Children, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 69.
His manager Tsu Tsu Stanton confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter.
“He was a very gifted and kind man who loved life and everyone,” Stanton stated on Twitter on Friday.
Cowles, whose career in film and television spanned more than four decades, earned two daytime Emmy nominations for his portrayal of Tuggle, a pimp who terrorized the town of Pine Valley, on the long-running soap opera. He appeared on the show in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s and again in 2013 on the web-only version.
Survivors include his wife of 30 years, The Good Wife actress Christine Baranski, the multiple Emmy nominee and Tony award winner, as well as daughters Isabel and Lily and grandson Max.
Cowles, a native of New York and an avid motorcyclist, played Monkey John on the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove and appeared on Kojak, Miami Vice, Law & Order, Oz and the BBC’s Life on Mars.
He played the trainer for the minor-league Charlestown Chiefs hockey team in Paul Newman‘s Slap Shot (1977) and had roles in The World According to Garp (1982), The Money Pit (1986), The Juror (1996), Nurse Betty (2000) and Martin Scorsese‘s Shutter Island (2010).
In 1966, Cowles made his Broadway debut starring in the world premiere of Edward Albee’s Malcolm. He also played opposite Al Pacino in the off-Broadway hit The Indian Wants the Bronx in 1968 and co-starred with Christopher Walken in Sweet Bird of Youth in 1975. His last New York stage appearance came in 2012 in The Taming of the Shrew.
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