George Clooney has led tributes to the late actor Ken Howard, the head of a leading Hollywood actors’ union and the star of 1970s drama series The White Shadow.
Ken, who served as president of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), died on Wednesday at the age of 71, the union announced.
He became famous for his role as Ken Reeves in The White Shadow, a US drama in which he played a retired NBA player now coaching high school players. He also appeared in Dynasty, Melrose Place and Crossing Jordan.
Screen Actors Guild President Ken Howard who has died aged 71 (Vince Bucci/Invision/AP)
George, who worked with Ken on the 2007 thriller Michael Clayton, paid tribute to his former co-star and recalled a moment of kindness after their first meeting in 1983.
In a statement reported by several American media outlets, George said he told Ken that he was going to miss an audition five miles away because he was on his bike.
“So Ken put his bike in the trunk of his car and dropped him off at Paramount,” George said.
Ken Howard as Ed Truck on #theoffice. He was a great guy and also in the best onscreen prop photo of all time! pic.twitter.com/pIflSsdvxv
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) March 24, 2016
“Then Ken just waved goodbye and said good luck, ‘I hope we do get that chance to work together.’
“I didn’t get that audition, But I did get the chance to work with him years later. It was an honour. Today his obituary read that he was six foot six, but he was so much taller than that.”
Ken was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 2009 and acted as the catalyst for its 2012 merger with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union.
The groups now represent 160,000 actors, broadcasters and recording artists.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here