Harris Yulin, ‘Scarface,’ ‘Ghostbusters II’ actor, dead at 87

Veteran actor Harris Yulin, who appeared in “Scarface,” “Ghostbusters II” and “Training Day,” died on June 10. He was 87.

Yulin died of cardiac arrest in New York, his manager, Sue Leibman, and his family confirmed in a statement.

In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Leibman said that the Emmy Award nominated actor was “part of the vanguard of a generation who cared passionately about the craft of acting — this deep, lifelong dedication led to extraordinary, resonant performances that were a gift to audiences, the actors he worked with, and the art of acting itself.”

Yulin was a versatile actor who starred on Broadway plays such as “Hedda Gabler,” “The Price,” “The Visit” and “Watch on the Rhine.”

On the big screen, Yulin excelled as corrupt Miami detective Mel Bernstein, who attempted to extort money from Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in 1983’s “Scarface.”

Yulin stood out as the corrupt Miami detective who tried to extort money from Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Scarface (1983), and as a manipulative national security adviser in the 1994 film “Clear and Present Danger.” He also played a corrupt police officer named Rosselli in the 2001 film, “Training Day.”

Not all of Yulin’s roles were serious. In 1989, he played the dismissive Judge Stephen Wexler, who presides over the court case against the supernatural sleuths in “Ghostbusters II.” He also played a goofy scientist who created four versions of Doug Kinney (Michael Keaton) in the 1996 film Multiplicity.

Yulin also appeared on television, featured in the Netflix series “Ozark.” He also had key roles in “Veep,” “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “And Just Like That,” “Billions,” “Divorce” and “WIOU.”

He was nominated for a primetime Emmy Award in 1996 for guest actor in a comedy for his work on “Frasier,” when he played crime boss Jerome Belasco in the hit series.

Yulin also starred as Quentin Travers, head of the Watchers’ Council, on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and as NSA director Roger Stanton on “24.”

Yulin was born on Nov. 5, 1937, in Los Angeles. He was abandoned as an infant and left on the steps of an orphanage.

Yulin was adopted when he was 4 months old and raised in a Jewish household by a Russian family who gave him his last name. He said the “life-changing” inspiration to become an actor came during his bar mitzvah.

“I enjoyed it so much,” Yulin said. “Most of my friends had said that they didn’t enjoy it, that it was a horrible thing to have to be up there before all those people, saying whatever they were saying, and I found the opposite to be so.”

According to IMDb.com, his career included more than 100 credits.

Yulin was also an instructor who taught at Juilliard, Columbia University and at HB Studio. He continued working on new projects until his death, including the series “American Classic.” Deadline reported that the series began production on the East Coast and Yulin was preparing to begin shooting his role this week. His role will be recast.

“Harris Yulin was very simply one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered,” director Michael Hoffman said. “His marriage of immense technique with an always fresh sense of discovery, gave his work an immediacy and vitality and purity I’ve experienced nowhere else. And what he was as an actor, he was as a man, the grace, the humility, the generosity. All of us at American Classic have been blessed by our experience with him. He will always remain the beating heart of our show.”

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