Ed Lauter

Ed Lauter is the textbook definition of a "that guy" actor — the kind of face you recognize instantly but whose name you might have to look up, and once you do, you realize he was in practically everything. Over a career spanning more than 40 years, he racked up appearances in well over 200 films and TV shows, playing the kind of gruff, imposing authority figures and blue-collar heavies that stories absolutely need to work. He was in The Longest Yard, King Kong, Breakheart Pass, and kept right on showing up in prestige pictures and genre fare alike well into the 2000s. A Long Island kid who came up through stand-up comedy, he brought a lived-in authenticity to every role that no amount of method training can manufacture. Hollywood ran on guys like him, and we don't make enough of them anymore. Gone in 2013, a few weeks before his 75th birthday — genuinely one of the greats of the character-actor tradition.

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Name (English)

Ed Lauter

Name (Japanese)

エド・ローター

Reading

えど・ろーたー

Born

October 30, 1938 – October 16, 2013

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Scorpio / Tiger

Origin

Long Beach, New York, United States

Height

188 cm

Occupation

television actor / film actor / actor / comedian / stage actor

High school

Long Beach High School

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed%20Lauter
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A8%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39972

Tags

• New York
• television actor
• film actor
• actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.