James Karen, the instantly recognizable character actor who moved the cemetery's headstones — but not the bodies — as the developer Mr. Teague in the modern horror classic Poltergeist, has died. He was 94.
The incredibly prolific Karen, who also was noteworthy in such films as The China Syndrome (1979) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and on the finale of NBC's Little House on the Prairie — he's the dastardly reason the town of Walnut Grove was blown up — died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home, his wife, Alba, said.
Karen, who usually portrayed authority figures, good and bad, during his seven-decade career, also appeared in three films for director Oliver Stone: as Lynch, the office manager at Jackson Steinem, where Charlie Sheen's stockbroker character works, in Wall Street (1987); as Secretary of State William Rogers in Nixon (1995); and as a Miami Sharks executive in Any Given Sunday (1999).