John Beasley, Actor on ‘Everwood’ and ‘The Soul Man,’ Dies at 79
A late bloomer, he stood out in films like 'The Apostle,' 'Rudy' and 'The Sum of All Fears' and was set to make his Broadway debut this year in 'The Notebook.'
John Beasley, the admired character actor who played the school bus driver Irv Harper on The WB drama
Everwood and Barton Bellentine, the father of Cedric the Entertainer’s character, on the TV Land comedy
The Soul Man, died Tuesday. He was 79.
Beasley died in a hospital in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, his son Tyrone Beasley told
The Hollywood Reporter. He had been undergoing tests on his liver before taking an unexpected turn for the worst.
Beasley sparkled as an assistant coach in
Rudy (1993) and as the retired minister Charles Blackwell in the
Robert Duvall-starring and directed
The Apostle (1997) and appeared in such other films as
V.I. Warshawski (1991),
The Mighty Ducks (1992),
Untamed Heart (1993),
Losing Isaiah (1993),
Little Big League (1994),
Crazy in Alabama (1997),
The General’s Daughter (1999),
The Sum of All Fears (2002), the 2004 remake of
Walking Tall and
Firestarter (2022).
