Richard Herd

Actor Richard Herd has often been described as looking a lot like the late, great Karl Malden. He even guest-starred in 1977 on an episode of the latter's famous cop drama vehicle, "The Streets of San Francisco." But for Herd, his ticket to success came in the form of a different police TV series, the unlikely mid-1980s William Shatner-led hit, "T.J. Hooker." He portrayed a fellow member of the police force, Captain Dennis Sheridan, and a decade later Herd played Admiral Noyce on the sequel drama, "SeaQuest 2032." In between, there is hardly a TV crime drama he did not touch in some form or another as a guest star--"Hardcastle and McCormick," "Simon and Simon," "Murder, She Wrote," and many more. To a whole new generation of "Seinfeld" fans, however, Herd will forever be known as Mr. Wilhelm, the role he played on 11 different episodes of the landmark NBC Thursday night "must -see" sitcom. At a high point of Herd's appearances as Wilhelm, the New York Yankees boss of Jason Alexander's character George Costanza was briefly abducted by a carpet-cleaning cult. Richard Herd died on May 26, 2020 at the age of 87.