Bruno Kirby dies at 57

From complications resulting from leukemia. Details here.

I first encountered Kirby, though I didn't know his name at the time, as a guest-star on "Room 222," a student whose purpose in life was to push three of his classmates into breaking the record for the most bananas eaten in an hour. He was intriguing enough, with the goofy grin and the slight whistle in his speech--something I recognized soon later, when he played a student at a military college in "Columbo." (This was when "Columbo" played on "The NBC Saturday Mystery Movie," alternately with "McCloud" and "Banacek" and a few others. Everyone over the age of 40 should remember the show, with the opening credits that featured a flashlight on some darkened moors and a long, slow whistle during the opening credits. The "Columbo" episode in question was one of the 127 Columbo episodes that featured Patrick McGoohan as the villian. Anyway, back to Bruno.)

In between his early TV appearances and his re-occurring role as Billy Crystal's best friend in a pair of enormously popular late-80s/early-90s comdies (When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers), Kirby was one of the great "That Guys" of Hollywood (defined by The Sports Guy as "Didn't I see That Guy in . . ."), right up there with Seymour Cassel, Donald Pleasance, and Joe Spinell (who was, boys and girls, both the button man Cici in Godfather I and II and the loanshark Gazzo in Rocky I and II). My favorite Kirby performance was of the puffy-becoming-obese young Clemenza in Godfather II, the wild street hood brought to riches (and discipline) by the cunning and ambition of the alpha-dog Godfather, Vito Corleone, played so superbly by Robert DeNiro. Kirby's death is a loss to his profession, to be sure. RIP.