Pulled from a studio mailroom as a teenager, Richard Jaeckel became one of Hollywood’s most durable character actors, playing soldiers, gangsters, lawmen and astronauts in 54 years before the camera.
Mr. Jaeckel, nominated for best supporting actor in 1971 for “Sometimes a Great Notion,” died of an undisclosed illness Saturday at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital, a spokeswoman said Monday. He was 70.
From “The Dirty Dozen” to “Baywatch,” the stocky, baby-faced Mr. Jaeckel was never far from the camera.
As a sister, Dorothy Jaeckel Hamlin, recalled Monday, he was working in the mail room of 20th Century Fox in 1943 when a studio executive noticed his good looks and asked him to take a screen test.
“He said `no,’ ” she recalled. “He wanted to stay in the mail room. Finally they persuaded him to have the test. But he had one condition. Afterwards he wanted to return to the mail room.”
Instead, he won a role as a teenage Marine in “Guadalcanal Diary” in 1943. After serving in the Navy from 1944 to 1948, he played a young Marine again in “The Sands of Iwo Jima” with John Wayne.
As a churlish sergeant in the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen,” Mr. Jaeckel played one of the few survivors along with stars Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson. He revived the character in the film’s made-for-television sequel, “The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission” in 1985.
“Sometimes a Great Notion” included an unforgettable scene in which the film’s star, Paul Newman, came to Mr. Jaeckel’s aid as he was pinned underwater by a fallen tree. The film, directed by Newman and also starring Henry Fonda, was based on a novel by Ken Kesey about a family of loggers carving a living out of the Oregon woods.
In 1991 and 1992, he regularly appeared on the syndicated TV series “Baywatch” as Lt. Ben Edwards.
Mr. Jaeckel also starred as Lt. Martin Quirk from 1985 to 1987 on the ABC-TV detective series “Spenser: For Hire,” starring Robert Urich.
Mr. Jaeckel also had movie roles in “Come Back, Little Sheba” (1952), “Town Without Pity” (1961), “Once Before I Die” (1965), “Grizzly” (1976), “Starman” (1984), “Black Moon Rising” (1986) and “Delta Force 2” (1990).
