HAROLD GOULD (1923-2010)

American actor Harold Gould died on saturday aged 86. Shortly after Kevin McCarthy, Hollywood loses another of its finest character actors. Gould appeared in film and television for nearly 50 years.

Of course he played Rhoda’s father Martin Morgenstern in both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, and Miles Webber in The Golden Girls and The Golden Palace, but he was also a familiar figure of practically every TV shows from the Golden era of US network television.

Harold Gould portrayed with absolute brilliance one of the most notable villains of the original Hawaii Five-O, vengeful crime syndicate patriarch Honore Vashon, in the trilogy V for Vashon (1972) and The Case against McGarrett (1975). On the ABC anthology series Love, American Style, Gould played the role of Howard Cunningham in the segment called Love and the Happy Days (1972). When Happy Days became a series in 1974, with Ron Howard and Henry Winkler, Gould was replaced by Tom Bosley.

His movie credits include The Sting (1973) - where he was Kid Twist, Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), and Patch Adams (1998).