Alan Rachins, who spent 13 seasons on television playing rough-and-tumble law partner Douglas Brackman Jr. Los Angeles Law and Jenna Elfman's character's hippie father Dharma and Greghe died on Saturday. He was 82 years old.
Rachins died in his sleep of heart failure in the early morning hours at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his wife, actress Joanna Frank. The Hollywood journalist.
He and Frank married in 1978 after meeting in an acting class. She starred as Sheila Brackman, his struggling wife Los Angeles Lawand they played a married couple Always (1985), written and directed by independent auteur Henry Jaglom.
In what some might call a bizarre coincidence, Rachins was one of the stripping cast members in the original stage production of OH! Calcutta and appeared as Tony Moss, the cruel toupee-wearing director of the topless dance revue at the Stardust Casino, in Paul Verhoeven's film Showgirl (1995).
Frank's late younger brother, legendary television writer and producer Steven Bochco, had his brother-in-law in mind for the part of the co-founder of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney & Kuzak when he was putting together the cast of lawyers for NBC. Los Angeles Law. (Bochco created the elegant show with lawyer/novelist Terry Louise Fisher.)
Rachins appeared in all but one of 172 episodes of the 20th Century Fox series, which ran for eight seasons (1986-94), and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his work in 1988. Importantly, Brackman he was often the butt of his colleagues' jokes.
“In the pilot episode, there was none of Douglas's quirkier or more bizarre side; he would become the hard-line, penny-pinching office manager,” Rachins recalled in a 1990 interview with The New York Times. “It was a little limited and I didn't know where it was going to go. But it quickly developed much more color and extravagance.
After Los Angeles Law ended its acclaimed run — it won four outstanding drama series Emmys — Rachins is back in primetime Dharma and Greg as Larry Finkelstein, the quirky hippie father of a yoga instructor (Elfman) married to a lawyer (Thomas Gibson). He was present in all 199 episodes of the sitcom, which lasted five seasons, from 1997 to 2002.
The buttoned-down Brackman and the radical Finkelstein of the 1960s couldn't have been more different. The roles were “like night and day,” he said.
An only child, Alan Leonard Rachins was born on October 3, 1942, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Boston. His father, Edward, ran a food manufacturing business that produced products including ice cream toppings, flavored syrups and cake toppings. His mother, Ida, died when he was 11 years old.
Rachins graduated from Brookline High School and spent two years at Penn's Wharton School before moving to New York to try acting. He studied with the likes of Warren Robertson and Kim Stanley and made his Broadway debut in 1967 After the rain.
He appeared in costume for about 18 months in the music revue OH! Calcuttawhich debuted in June 1969 at the Eden Theatre, once home to X-rated films. (Also in the cast: future Maude actor Bill Macy.)
“We went through a month of very intense rehearsals before that day came when we actually took off our garments together,” he said during a 2020 conference. Los Angeles Law meeting organized by Stars in the House.
When he was introduced to someone as an actor in OH! Calcuttahe often heard the joke: “I didn't recognize you with your clothes on,” he would say. “That was the supposed joke I must have heard 30 times, and I became less and less pleasant about it [each time].”
In 1972, Rachins was accepted into the writing and directing programs at AFI in Los Angeles. He worked as an AFI intern for director Arthur Penn Missouri breaks (1978); he has written for shows such as Hill Street Blues, Hart to Hart AND The boy of autumn; and directed an episode of James Earl Jones Paris. (Bochco created Hill Street Blues AND Parisas well.)
His stint with Jaglom got his acting career back on track.
Rachins appeared on the big screen in Heart condition (1990), North (1994), Meet Wally Sparks (1997), Leave it to Beaver (1997) e Start (2012), and had a recurring role on TNT Rizzoli & Islands.
Survivors include her son, Robert.