Character Actor John Finnegan 1926-2012

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John Finnegan, 85, a character actor who portrayed a scout in the 1984 baseball film "The Natural" and regularly appeared on television's "Columbo," died Sunday at his Palm Desert home from pneumonia and complications of old age, said his wife, Carolynn.

At the Actors Studio in his native New York City he became friends with John Cassavetes and Peter Falk, two connections that helped Finnegan when he moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950s.

With Falk in the starring role of Det. Columbo, Finnegan played a wide variety of supporting parts between 1972 and 2003 in the detective series and television movies. Finnegan also appeared with Falk in the Cassavetes-directed films "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974) and "Big Trouble" (1986).

As old scout Sam Simpson in the opening scenes of "The Natural," which starred Robert Redford, Finnegan "carries the feeling of an earlier America," the New Yorker said of his performance in 1984.

His nearly 70 television and film projects included voicing Warren T. Rat, a villain in the 1986 animated movie "An American Tail," and playing a judge in the 1991 Oliver Stone film "JFK."

Born Aug. 18, 1926, Finnegan was one of 11 children of Irish immigrants and served in the Navy during World War II.

With his first wife, he had four children. After she died in 1989, he met Carolynn and they were married in 1992.

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