Darren McGavin, the tough talking actor who will always be treasured by fans the world over for his stint as Carl Kolchak, the night beat reporter who investigates the supernatural in the cult series The Night Stalker, died on February 25 in Los Angeles of natural causes. He was 83.

Born on May 7, 1922 in Spokane, Washington, McGavin was secretive about his childhood, only revealing that he was a chronic runaway by 12 and he seldom saw his parents after that. After a brief stint as painter for various Hollywood studios in the late '40s, McGavin moved to New York to try his hand at acting.

He studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse under the legendary Sanford Meisner and at the Actors Studio. He found work on Broadway including runs in The Rainmaker and Death of a Salesman and early, New York based television productions such as Studio One, Kraft Television Theatre, and Goodyear Television Playhouse.

In film, McGavin scored two big coups early on, the first as a young American artist in David Lean's Summertime starring Katharine Hepburn; and the second as a drug supplier in Otto Preminger's The Man With The Golden Arm with Frank Sinatra (both 1955). He would score a big hit as Jerry Lewis' parole officer in The Delicate Delinquent (1957), Jerry's first film after his split with Dean Martin.

After that, McGavin was in demand for television. McGavin starred in a few hit shows: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1957-59), and Riverboat (1959-61) about 19th century life on the water that co-starred a very young Burt Reynolds. After both shows ended, McGavin was a mainstay on the small screen, guest appearing on many hit shows: (Mannix, Gunsmoke, and The Name of the Game). He made a notable impression in one of the first critically acclaimed television movies, Tribes (1970), playing a drill sergeant who clashes with a young hippie (Jan Michael Vincent).

McGavin would score the most memorable role of his career when he accepted the part of Carl Kolchak in the TV series, The Night Stalker. Kolchak was a news hound who scurried around in the wee hours of the night looking for vampires, werewolves, mummies and other frightening creatures lurking around the corners of his fair city. He first played the character in a made-for-television flick The Night Stalker (1972), about a showgirl vampire who's on a killing spree in Las Vegas! So popular was the movie it generated a series, that, although lasted only one season (1974-75), proved to be an inspiration for many shows decades later (The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) that, like Kolchak, combined the daily happenings of the occult with humor and intelligence.

His most best known film role was that of the cantankerous father in A Christmas Story (1983), a flick that is played religiously on television throughout the holidays. He was also impressive as a gambler in the Robert Redford vehicle The Natural (1984), but he would return to television for the remainder of his career. He won an Emmy award in 1990 for his performance as Candice Bergen's opinionated father on Murphy Brown, and did guest stints on numerous shows in the late '90s: Grace Under Fire, Touched by an Angel, and, you guessed it, The X Files. He is survived by his children Bogart, Bridget, Megan and York.

by Michael T. Toole