G.D. Spradlin, Prolific Actor Known for Playing Authority Figures, Dies

G.D. Spradlin, a successful businessman who later became a character actor with a knack for conveying gravitas and a sense of menace to numerous television series and such feature films as The Godfather: Part II and Apocalypse Now, died July 24, 2011, at his cattle ranch Sunday in San Luis Obispo, California. He was 90. Spradlin began acting in his forties after achieving wealth as an oil company lawyer and independent oil producer. In more than 30 years of television and film work, he played a variety of roles, many of them authority figures such as doctors, ministers, military officers and politicians. Of the later, his most memorable was his breakthrough movie role as corrupt Nevada Sen. Pat Geary in director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II in 1974. Five years later, Spradlin and Coppola collaborated again with Apocalypse Now, in which Spradlin had a small but memorable role as an Army general who sends Martin Sheen’s Capt. Willard up river to find and kill Marlon Brando’s Col. Kurtz in Coppola’s adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. Other films of note included North Dallas Forty, The War of the Roses, Ed Wood and Dick. Spradlin’s television work included roles as two chief executives: the miniseries Robert Kennedy & His Times, in which he played President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Houston: The Legend of Texas, in which he played President Andrew Jackson. In addition, he was an admiral in the miniseries War and Remembrance and had guest roles in numerous series, including Gomer Pyle, USMC, I Spy, The Big Valley, Mannix, It Takes a Thief, Bonanza, Kung Fu, Adam-12, Columbo and many others. The son of two schoolteachers, he was born Gervase Duan Spradlin on August 31, 1920, in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. After earning a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Oklahoma before serving in the Army Air Forces in China during World War II. He received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1948, after which he became an attorney for Phillips Petroleum Co. He then became head of Phillips’ legal department in Caracas, Venezuela. After returning to Oklahoma in 1951, Spradlin became an independent oil producer. He was so successful that he retired in 1960 and spent time cruising the Bahamas on a yacht with his family. Seeking another outlet for his energy, Spradlin turned to acting. He developed an interest in performing in 1963 when his daughter, a member of the children’s classes at the Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City, wanted to audition for a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. To give her moral support, Spradlin accompanied her to the theater and wound up auditioning for — and landing — a role in the play. In all, he appeared in three local productions. Prior to his decision to pursue acting seriously, Spradlin earned a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of Miami in 1965 and was a doctoral candidate in the same field. He also directed John F. Kennedy‘s 1960 presidential campaign in Oklahoma and had an unsuccessful run for mayor of Oklahoma City in 1965. He moved his family to Los Angeles in 1966 to devote himself to acting. Spradlin’s first wife, with whom he had two daughters, died in 2000. Survivors include his second wife, whom he married in 2002, two daughters and five grandchildren.