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Actor Ron Harper passed away at home in the West Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles on March 21, his daughter, Nicole Longeuay, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 91.
Born in Pennsylvania, the actor attended Princeton University, but turned down a fellowship at Harvard Law in order to pursue his passion for acting. After a stint in the navy, Harper understudied for Paul Newman in the 1959 Broadway production of Sweet Bird of Youth. After relocating to Hollywood, he began his television career, which included series like THE TALL MAN and PLANET OF THE APES, and later hit shows like BEVERLY HILLS, 90210 and THE WEST WING.
On daytime, Harper made his mark on several soaps, playing Steve Prescott on WHERE THE HEART IS, Andrew Marriott on LOVE OF LIFE, Taylor Halloway on ANOTHER WORLD, Baxter McCandless (also known by the alias he assumed while amnesiac, Jarrett Morgan) on CAPITOL, and Charles Hartman on LOVING. His last soap appearance was on GENERATIONS, where he played Peter, the patriarch of the Whitmore family, from 1990-91.
On CAPITOL, Ron Howard played Baxter, the back-from-the-dead husband of Constance Towers’s Clarissa.
