Stage, movie and TV character actor Mark Blum, who had roles in the films Desperately Seeking Susan and Crocodile Dundee, has died from coronavirus complications aged 69.
An executive with the labour union SAG-AFTRA and the off-Broadway theatre company Playwrights Horizons announced the actor’s death.
Blum’s recent Broadway credits included The Assembled Parties, Twelve Angry Men, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man – twice – and Neil Simon’s Lost In Yonkers.
With love and heavy hearts, Playwrights Horizons pays tribute to Mark Blum, a dear longtime friend and a consummate artist who passed this week. Thank you, Mark, for all you brought to our theater, and to theaters and audiences across the world. We will miss you. pic.twitter.com/NMVZFB5hPb
— Playwrights Horizons (@phnyc) March 26, 2020
He played Rosanna Arquette’s husband in the 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan and had a role in Crocodile Dundee as the newspaper editor. He was on the Amazon series Mozart In The Jungle and was in the Netflix crime drama You.
Rebecca Damon, SAG-AFTRA executive vice president and New York president, wrote in tribute of Blum: “Those of us lucky enough to have known him will treasure our memories of a gifted actor, a master teacher, a loyal friend, and a beautiful human.”
The virus has infected some Broadway veterans, including the actors Gavin Creel, Aaron Tveit and Laura Bell Bundy and composer David Bryan. It has also claimed the life of four-time Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally.