STAMFORD, Conn. - Actor Earl Hindman, best known for playing a neighbor whose face was forever obscured by a fence on the television show "Home Improvement," died of lung cancer Monday. He was 61.
As Wilson, the neighbor of Tim Allen's character on the long-running sitcom, Hindman dispensed folksy advice from behind a white picket fence, with only his eyes and forehead visible to audiences.
"Earl had a very deep voice. It was very rich, very warm and very recognizable," his wife, the Rev. Molly McGreevy of St. Francis Episcopal Church in Stamford, told The Advocate of Stamford. "He was the funniest human being I ever met. Even after 27 years of marriage, he could always crack me up."
Despite his fame, Hindman remained a modest man who enjoyed stamp and coin collecting, listening to country music and playing poker with his friends.
"He was not impressed with himself — not in the least," McGreevy said. "He was a person who was never changed by success."
Before appearing on the show, he played Detective Lt. Bob Reid for 16 years on the daytime drama "Ryan's Hope."
"He was the kind of actor you depended on," said Helen Gallagher, one of his Ryan's Hope co-stars. "He was very steady and very talented actor and such a down-to-earth human being."
He made his name in New York theater, appearing in "Dark of the Moon" off-Broadway in 1970 and in "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" at the Public Theater in 1971. He also acted in two short-lived Broadway plays and in several movies, including "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" (1991) and "Final" (2001).
He was born in Bisbee, Ariz. and studied acting at the University of Arizona in Tucson. (As reported by the Associated Press)
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