( CNN ) Richard Dysart , the award-winning stage actor who gained fame playing law firm leader Leland McKenzie on `` L.A. Law , '' has died . He was 86 . He died of cancer at his home in Santa Monica , California , according to his wife , Kathryn Jacobi Dysart . For decades , Dysart was a noted TV and film character actor , and stage star , winning a Drama Desk award for playing coach in Jason Miller 's Pulitzer Prize-winning play , `` That Championship Season . '' But it was as McKenzie , the occasionally crusty paterfamilias on `` L.A. Law , '' that he 's likely best remembered . ' L.A . Law ' : Sex , crime and the 'Venus Butterfly ' McKenzie usually took a back seat to the younger , more glamorous characters on `` Law , '' a Steven Bochco-created legal show that owed much to his previous hit , `` Hill Street Blues . '' The employees of McKenzie , Brackman , Chaney and Kuzak included Harry Hamlin 's smooth-talking Michael Kuzak , Corbin Bernsen 's skirt-chasing divorce attorney Arnie Becker and Michele Greene 's idealistic Abby Perkins . There was as much time devoted to bedroom activities as there was legal issues while the show bravely took on such topics as AIDS , child molestation and capital punishment . But McKenzie was the one who kept them in check while still encouraging their better instincts . ( Alan Rachins ' Douglas Brackman was the business guy . ) He was also involved in one of the show 's most surprising plot twists : a romantic affair with a rival , Rosalind Shays ( Diana Muldaur ) , who met with one of TV 's most shocking deaths -- plunging down an elevator shaft . Dysart appeared in every episode of the show , which ran from 1986 to 1994 . After `` L.A. Law '' ended , Dysart took few roles , though he did return for an `` L.A. Law '' reunion movie in 2002 . Dysart 's other credits include 1971 's `` The Hospital , '' 1975 's `` The Day of the Locust , '' 1979 's `` Being There , '' John Carpenter 's 1982 version of `` The Thing , '' 1985 's `` The Falcon and the Snowman '' and 1987 's `` Mask . '' He is survived by Jacobi Dysart , his wife of nearly three decades , a son and two grandchildren . CNN 's Rachel Wells contributed to this story .
The died of cancer at his home in California , Santa Monica . He usually took a back seat to the younger , more glamorous characters on the show .