Richard Riehle, prolific character actor known for roles in 'Office Space' and 'Casino,' dies at 78
Richard Riehle, prolific character actor known for roles in 'Office Space' and 'Casino,' dies at 78
Mike BebernesMon, October 19, 2026 at 7:52 PM UTC
0
Riehle's signature mustache and warm persona made him a regular staple in TV and film throughout his nearly 50-year career.
Richard Riehle, a prolific character actor with more than 400 acting credits, has died, TMZ and Variety report. He was 78.
Yahoo has reached out to his reps for comment.
Riehle's signature mustache and warm persona made him a regular, at times scene-stealing, staple in TV and film throughout his nearly 50-year career. He's likely best known for playing Tom Smykowski, an affable-but-bumbling corporate worker with the dream of inventing a "jump to conclusions mat," in the 1999 workplace comedy Office Space. Riehle also made memorable appearances in award-winning films like Casino, The Fugitive and Of Mice and Men.
He continued working in his final years, earning dozens of acting credits over the course of the 2020s.
Raised in a small farming town in Wisconsin, Riehle discovered acting while studying at the University of Notre Dame and honed his craft while earning a master's degree at the University of Minnesota. His first film role was in the 1975 western Rooster Cogburn, starring John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn.
Advertisement
"I was a glorified extra," he told the pop culture site the AV Club in 2017. "I think I was a dead body two or three different places in there. But I can't find myself in it, so I wouldn't expect anybody else to recognize me, either!"
As his career developed, many of his parts remained small, but the projects he appeared in kept getting bigger and bigger. He played a quartermaster in the Civil War epic Glory, a reverend in Fried Green Tomatoes, a detective on Golden Girls and an interstellar diplomat on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"I was doing this stuff that was totally unexpected, and I thought, well this is crazy, but I'll keep doing it until somebody tells me, 'OK, move on. You don't belong here.' … So far, I haven't gotten that notice," he said during an interview with Pop Culture Addicts in early 2025.
Riehle's remarkable longevity is a testament to his versatility — which allowed him to fit seamlessly into comedies, dramas, horror movies and even anime — as well as his attitude toward acting.
"My choice is almost always to say 'yes,'" he told YouTuber Brian Allan in 2021. "I can almost always find something worthwhile in every project that's presented to me."
Jay Spears, a Los Angeles-based artist and friend of Riehle's, wrote on Facebook that "Everyone who knew him was aware that his fantastic talent was only exceeded by his generosity with it. In the decades I knew him, never once did an unkind, unpleasant, or unfair utterance pass his cheerful lips. His stellar career guarantees his immortality for as long as digital media exists."
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
