[Deathwatch] Eugene Roche, actor, 75

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

'Ajax man' actor dead at 75
Eugene Roche also had roles on 'All in the Family,' 'Magnum'
Monday, August 2, 2004 Posted: 10:10 AM EDT (1410 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/08/02/obit.roche.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Eugene Roche, a paunchy character actor
who played the kitchen-cleaning "Ajax man" in commercials and had
memorable roles in such television shows as "All in the Family" and
"Magnum P.I" has died at age 75.

Roche died Wednesday after suffering a heart attack in an Encino
hospital, family friend Timothy Wayne said Friday. He had been
hospitalized Monday for tests after suffering a mild heart attack at
his home in Sherman Oaks, Wayne said.

Roche's name may not be familiar to most audiences, but his face surely
was.

Plump and jovial with glinting eyes, Roche costarred on TV's "Webster"
as a lovable landlord, and was Archie Bunker's neighborhood nemesis
Pinky Peterson on "All in the Family."

Roche, born in Boston, also played the curmudgeonly "old school"
private investigator Luther Gillis on "Magnum P.I.," the sly attorney
E. Ronald Mallu on the sitcom "Soap" and the newspaper editor Harry
Burns on "Perfect Strangers."

One of his most memorable movie roles was in 1971's
"Slaughterhouse-Five," based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Roche
played a likable POW named Edgar Derby, who amid the scorched remains
of a firebombed Dresden picks up an intact porcelain figurine as a
souvenir -- and is promptly executed for looting by his German captors.


Survivors include his wife, Anntoni, and their nine children.