‘Deadwood’ & ‘NCIS’ Actor Peter Jason Dies at 80

Veteran actor Peter Jason, who played Con Stapleton in the HBO western drama Deadwood, has died. He was 80.

A cause of death has not yet been revealed. However, actor Billy Zane confirmed the passing in a heartfelt tribute post late Thursday (February 20), writing, “If there are no words then there certainly is no music.. My dear, dear friend, the brightest light, most generous soul and gregarious of men, the supremely talented and kind Peter Jason has left the set.”

“Survived by his lovely wife Eileen and his children, the vacuum felt by his passing gut punched me as I saw it coming,” said Zane, who starred alongside Jason in the 2008 film The Man Who Came Back. “It had me spending the last two hours deciding between pieces of music to underscore this tribute that would either confuse, tickle or bore 1/2 of the viewers. They ranged from Spike Jones to Morricone. I couldn’t pick one so I chose none.”

He added, “All I know is his wake will be widely attended by and teeter somewhere between a Friar’s Roast to a burial at sea befitting an admiral, See you on the back 9 my friend!”

 

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Halloween director John Carpenter also paid tribute, writing on X, “Peter Jason, one of the great character actors in cinema, has died. His first movie was Howard Hawks’ Rio Lobo. He was a dear friend and I’ll miss him terribly.”

Born on July 22, 1944, in Hollywood, California, Jason had a prolific career in acting, amassing over 250 credits in film, television, and video games over near sixty years. His first credited role came in the 1967 TV movie A Bell for Adano, and from there, he appeared in Here Come the Brides and played three different roles on Gunsmoke.

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In the 1980s, he played a soccer coach in The Karate Kid and had two roles in the series Remington Steele. Towards the end of the decade, he developed a close working relationship with Carpenter and went on to appear in several of his films, including 1987’s Prince of Darkness, 1988’s They Live, and later in the likes of In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Village of the Damned (1995), and Escape from L.A. (1996).

While he appeared in small roles in countless TV series, he’s perhaps best known for playing the dim-witted Con Stapleton in HBO’s Deadwood, appearing over the course of 26 episodes between 2004 and 2006 and the 2019 reunion film.

His other TV credits included One Day at a Time, Starsky and Hutch, The Incredible Hulk, Cagney & Lacey, The Golden Girls, Knots Landing, Roseanne, Desperate Housewives, Arrested Development, Baskets, NCIS, and many more.

Elsewhere, he lent his voice to the hit video games Gears of War 2 and Fallout 2 and also appeared in the music video for Meat Loaf’s “Bat of Hell II.”