Ron Silver, the Tony Award-winning actor who amassed an impressive list of roles based on real-life figures in movies that included “Reversal of Fortune” and “Ali,” died Sunday. He was 62.
Silver, a longtime liberal political activist who became an outspoken supporter of former President George W. Bush’s military response to Sept. 11, 2001, died of esophageal cancer in New York, according to Robin Bronk, executive director of the Creative Coalition, which he helped found.
During his nearly four-decade career, Silver appeared in films such as the critically acclaimed “Enemies: A Love Story,” a 1989 tragicomedy in which he starred as a married immigrant Polish Jew who is living in post-World War II Coney Island and having an affair.
On television, he received Emmy Award nominations for his supporting role in the 1987 miniseries “Billionaire Boys Club” and, in 2002, for his recurring role as presidential campaign adviser Bruno Gianelli on “The West Wing.” On Broadway, he won both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk award in 1988 for best actor as the loathsome Hollywood movie producer in David Mamet’s “Speed-the- Plow” — “the performance of his career,” proclaimed New York Times critic Frank Rich.
He campaigned for Bill Clinton for president, attended the Democratic National Conventions in 1992 and 2000 and vocally expressed liberal views on abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research and other issues.
But the 2001 terrorist attacks marked a turning point for the actor-activist, who delivered a rousing endorsement of Bush at the Republican National Convention in 2004.
Silver was born in New York on July 2, 1946, and grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.He made his New York stage debut in 1971. Four years later, he moved to Los Angeles with the “El Grande de Coca-Cola” and began working in TV and films.
