Barry Newman, a seasoned actor best remembered for his role in the action movie Vanishing Point from 1971, has died.
Newman passed away on May 11 at the age of 92. No other details about his passing are known as of this writing. In the feature film directed by Richard C. Sarafian, the actor portrayed former racing car racer, Kowalski.
Newman’s character in Vanishing Point returns to speeding after getting entangled in a criminal conspiracy and rushes around in a Dodge Challenger, despite changing occupations to become a delivery driver. Vanishing Point is regarded as a classic in the action genre by fans. The next year, Newman and English performer Suzy Kendall starred in the British action film Fear is the Key.
The actor also appeared in the legal drama series Petrocelli from the 1970s. Two seasons of the show were broadcast between 1974 and 1976. Tony Petrocelli’s title character, played by actor Newman, was an Italian-American lawyer from Boston who chose the calm Arizona city of San Remo over the hectic pace of the large metropolis. Newman was of Austrian and Belarusian ancestry.
He was raised in Massachusetts’s Boston. After earning a degree in anthropology, Newman was drafted into the US Army in 1952 and used his high school saxophone and clarinet skills as a member of the 3rd Army Band in Atlanta.
Years later, after being released from the army, Newman enrolled at Columbia University to pursue his master’s in anthropology.
When a buddy who was taking acting classes from theatrical director Lee Strasberg asked him to observe, he first learned about acting. Five weeks into his master’s program, a newly motivated Newman dropped out to pursue acting.
Other significant cinematic roles for Newman include his role as a heavy in the 1999 crime drama The Limey directed by Steven Soderbergh, 13 episodes of the NBC medical drama Nightingales, as well as several episodes of Murder, She Wrote and the hit adolescent drama The OC.
