Hollywood veteran, Ed Lauter, died on Wednesday. He was 74.

Lauter’s publicist, Edward Lozzi, says the actor died Wednesday of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer most commonly caused by asbestos exposure.

Edward Matthew Lauter was born on October 30, 1938, in Long Beach on New York’s Long Island. He graduated from the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, where he majored in English and played basketball. He studied acting and worked as a stand-up comic before landing a small part in the 1968 Broadway production of the drama The Great White Hope, which marked the beginning of his long and prolific career.

Lauter appeared in more than 200 movies and numerous TV shows. In a 2010 interview with Cinema Shock magazine, Ed described himself as a “turn actor” explaining that he usually played characters who, when they entered a story, turned the plot in a different direction.

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