Dynasty star John Forsythe, who played patriarch Blake Carrington on the primetime soap and was the voice of Charlie in both the TV and film versions of Charlie’s Angels, lost his nearly four-year-battle with cancer on Thursday.
In a statement Friday, Reuters reported, “The family of John Forsythe sadly announces his passing on April 1, 2010. He was 92 years old and, thankfully, he died as he lived his life … with dignity and grace, after a years-long struggle with cancer.”
Forsythe, who also played Bentley Gregg, the swinging single saddled with an orphaned niece on the 1957-62 sitcom Bachelor Father, received three Emmy nominations for Dynasty, which ran from 1981-89. After making his film debut in 1943, he also appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock movies The Trouble with Harry (1955) and Topaz (1969), as well as 1988’s Bill Murray comedy Scrooged, among many others.
Born John Lincoln Freund in Penn’s Grove, N.J., Forsythe found his first love in the Brooklyn Dodgers. He dropped out of the University of North Carolina to become their stadium announcer.
A two-year marriage at 20 to actress Paula McCormick produced a son, Dall. A second marriage, to Julie Warren, lasted from 1943 until her death in 1994 and produced two daughters: Page and Brooke.
In 2002, he married businesswoman Nicole Carter, who, along with his children, survive him
After serving as a speech rehabilitation counselor for shell-shocked Air Force pilots during World War II (“maybe the most rewarding moments of my life,” he told PEOPLE), Forsythe came back to the Actors Studio and theater. Teahouse of the August Moon and Mr. Roberts on Broadway led to TV and his movie career.
In 2006, it was revealed Forsythe had been diagnosed with colon cancer.
He will be remembered for his distinguished voice and courtly presence on screen. Off screen, it was his modesty that separated him from the rest of the crowd.
In 1979, Forsythe told PEOPLE, “I’m not a soaring talent. I am a good journeyman actor, but nowhere near the league of Brando or Scott. Those people are touched by the hand of God.”