Daniel von Bargen

Actor

Born: June 5, 1950

Died: March 1, 2015

Daniel von Bargen, who has died aged 64, made a career out of playing sinister, pompous and sometimes downright incompetent figures of authority on film and television.

Latterly he became a familiar figure as a hopeless businessman Mr Kruger on Seinfeld (1997-98) and the intimidating Commandant Spangler who ran the military academy in Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2002).

A rather overbearing air lent itself to comedy and he also played the sheriff in pursuit of escaped convict George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' wonderful O Brother, Where art Thou? (2000).

But he appeared in several hit dramas too, particularly earlier in his career, including The Silence of the Lambs (1991), in which he was a SWAT officer, and Basic Instinct (1992), as a police officer.

His own life was tinged with tragedy in recent years. He had diabetes, had a leg amputated and was scheduled to have part of his remaining foot amputated when he attempted to kill himself three years ago. He shot himself in the head, but survived and called emergency services.

Of English and German descent, he was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1950, but moved to California with his family as a boy. He studied drama at university in Indiana, spent several years with a repertory theatre company in Providence, Rhode Island, and began getting small He made his mark on Broadway with an award-winning performance as a character called Major Battle in the political satire Mastergate in 1989. His character was reputedly inspired by Oliver North.

His film career picked up gradually over the years and he was particularly memorable as the sheriff who is initially sceptical of Kevin Costner's character in the post-apocalyptic drama The Postman (1997), but then comes to embrace the hope that Costner represents, shouting "Ride, Postman, ride!" just as his own character is about to be executed for supporting rebellion.

Other credits include Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog (1991), Rising Sun (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Broken Arrow (1996), Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997), The X-Files (1998), The West Wing (2000), in which he played an Air Force general in a couple of episodes, and Super Troopers (2001).

The 1990s had proven particularly fruitful for him in terms of supporting roles in high-profile films, though he said: "I don't necessarily like going to the movies. It's a little nerve-wracking to see your head the size of a house."

His focus shifted to television and to comedy in the 2000s and he admitted that he took great delight when people recognised him and told him they thought he was funny.

A rather severe-looking individual, he was unlikely to get many roles as a romantic lead, but did not seem to resent his typecasting as policemen and military figures, once noting: "Thank God for the white male power structure."

He took on very few film roles in the last ten years of his life, due largely to his deteriorating health.