Allan Rich, known for roles in ‘Serpico’ and ‘Quiz Show,’ dies of dementia at 94

Actor Allan Rich, known for star turns in “Serpico,” “Quiz Show” and many other movies and television shows, as well as for being blacklisted for championing a Black man’s civil rights, has died.

He was 94.

He died over the weekend at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N.J., an assisted-living facility for people in the business, reported Variety.

The cause was due to complications from progressive dementia, his family said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in the Bronx in 1926 as Benjamin Norman Schultz, Rich debuted on Broadway in 1943 in “I’ll Take the High Road,” produced by Milton Berle, Variety reported.

He would work with Berle for the rest of his life, as well as Edward G. Robinson, Claude Raines, Ralph Bellamy, Jack Palance, Kim Hunter and Henry Fonda, according to Variety.

He was famously blacklisted by Hollywood in the mid-1940s after championing the civil rights of Willie McGee, a Black man wrongly convicted of rape, so he became a stockbroker. McGee was electrocuted in 1951. After working to free him, Rich was fired from the NBC series “Philco Playhouse” without any explanation.

“My agent never sent me out [on another audition],” he recalled in 2007, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I would walk into an office, making the rounds. And I’d walk out going phhffffft. It took a year till an actor said to me, ‘Hey, we’re on Red Channels.’ If your name was on that list, goooooood-byyyyye! You never worked.”

His career eventually bounced back, as he began acting again in the 1960s, Variety said. He also taught the likes of Sharon Stone, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rene Russo, Donna Dixon, Alan Thicke and Larry Miller.

He also appeared in now-classic TV shows including “Hawaii Five-O,” “All in the Family,” “Kojak,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Baretta,” “Happy Days,” “CHiPS,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Alice,” “Magnum PI” and “Hill Street Blues,” TMZ reported.

He is survived by his children, Marian and David; daughter-in-law Wendy; son-in-law Ed; and grandchildren Julia and Ruby, among many others, The Hollywood Reporter said.