he played Reverend Silas Pendrake in Little Big Man (1970). He also played the professional arsonist Charlie Robbins in Save the Tiger (1973) with Jack Lemmon, the afflicted spymaster Dragon in The Eiger Sanction (1975) with Clint Eastwood, and fight promoter Miles Jergens in Rocky (1976). He played numerous characters on different TV series, including The Wild Wild West, The Rockford Files, Columbo, Ellery Queen, Kojak, Petrocelli, Charlie's Angels, and Hawaii Five-O. David appeared in TV movies such as Nikita Khrushchev in Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident (1976) and The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), as well as miniseries such as Roots, The Rhinemann Exchange, and Washington: Behind Closed Doors. In 1977, David played the title role in Nero Wolfe, Paramount Television's made-for-TV movie based on the Rex Stout novel The Doorbell Rang. David portrayed the corpulent detective Nero Wolfe, who took on clients grudgingly and solved mysteries dazzlingly. Intended to be the pilot for a series, the film was shelved by ABC. It eventually aired December 18, 1979, 17 months after David's death. He also played an important role as the lead antagonist, Mr. Edward Byron, in the made-for-TV film Spider-Man (1977), which served as the pilot for the 1978 TV series The Amazing Spider-Man. Personal life A resident of Manhattan, Thayer David collected walking sticks, 18th century European landscape paintings, and Victorian furniture. "He was the most widely educated and best-read actor I've ever encountered," said Frank D. Gilroy, who wrote and directed the 1977 TV movie Nero Wolfe. He was married to and divorced from film and television actress Valerie French. Thayer David died July 17, 1978, of a heart attack in New York City at the age of 51. He and French had been planning to remarry. He was cremated. Filmography Further reading Hamrick, Craig & Jamison, R. J. Barnabas & Company: The Cast of the TV Classic Dark Shadows Revised (2012) iUniverse, 2012. pp 93–107. References External links 1927 births 1978 deaths American male film actors American male stage actors American male television actors 20th-century American male actors People from Medford, Massachusetts Harvard University alumni Nero Wolfe Male actors from Massachusetts