[Deathwatch] Dennis Patrick, Actor, 84

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

TV Actor Dennis Patrick Dies in L.A. House Fire
Mon Oct 14, 3:22 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Character actor Dennis Patrick, a regular in
the cast of "Dallas" and the classic daytime horror soap opera "Dark
Shadows," died of possible smoke inhalation, in a weekend fire at his
Hollywood Hills home, officials said on Monday. He was 84.

Patrick was found dead by firefighters on Sunday afternoon with the
body of his dog on the floor next to him, according to a spokesman for
the Los Angles City Fire Department.

Patrick was the second television performer to perish in a house fire
in Los Angeles in less than week. Actress Teresa Graves, who appeared
on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and starred as the sexy undercover cop
on The 1970s TV series "Get Christie Love!," died in a fire that swept
her home in the Hyde Park district of Los Angeles last Thursday.

Patrick appeared on dozens of shows spanning four decades of
television, ranging from "Gunsmoke," "Perry Mason" and "Kojak" to "All
in the Family," "Eight is Enough" and "Coach."

He played businessman Vaughn Lelend, a competitor of the Ewing family
and a suspect in the famed "Who Shot J.R.?" episode, on the hit CBS
prime-time drama "Dallas" from 1979 to 1984, and appeared in two
different roles during the 1960s on the gothic daytime serial "Dark
Shadows."

According to career background posted by the Internet Movie Database,
Patrick also had a notable role as television's first vampire in a 1951
episode of the short-lived mystery and suspense anthology series,
"Stage 13."

Motion picture credits included "Joe," "The Air Up There" and "The
House of Dark Shadows."